My great-great Irish family: when US leaders 'come home'

It's been a rite of passage for American leaders since John F. Kennedy, one which many describe as a highlight of their time in the Oval Office.

After a whistlestop visit to Northern Ireland on Wednesday, Joe Biden travels south to the Irish Republic, where the proud great-great-grandson of Irish emigrants can look forward to a rockstar reception.

He will be the eighth US president to visit Ireland, where over 30 million Americans have roots. AFP looks back at the other visits:

Crazy for Kennedy

In the 1960s while Britain was in the throes of Beatlemania, Ireland was crazy for Kennedy.

JFK's landmark visit in June 1963 -- made without Jackie who was pregnant at the time -- entranced the nation, where his family's journey from famine-hit Ireland in the mid-19th century to the White House was seen as the pinnacle of the American Dream.

The emotional high point of the trip was his visit to the Kennedy homestead in County Wexford, where he was served tea and cake in a yard by his cousin Mary Ryan.

"This is not the land of my birth, but it is the land for which I hold the greatest affection," Kennedy said on leaving the island. Five months later, he was assassinated.

Little love for Nixon

Richard Nixon got a more muted reception when he visited seven years later with his wife Pat during the Vietnam war.

While people lined the roads to see his motorcade pass and thronged a Quaker burial ground where his mother's ancestors were buried, there were anti-war demonstrations in Dublin where one protester lobbed an egg at him.

- A pint, Mr President? -

All the world was a stage for actor-turned-president Ronald Reagan and nowhere was more in character than Ballyporeen when he and his wife Nancy visited the village of his great-grandfather in County Tipperary in June 1984.

Reagan was treated to a display of traditional Irish dancing, a speech from a local official declaring "These are Ballyporeen's greatest hours" and a pint in the pub, renamed The Ronald Reagan for the occasion.

Years later, Reagan's foundation bought up the pub and shipped it brick by brick across the Atlantic to the Reagan Library in California.

Clinton plays peacemaker

Bill Clinton visited the island of Ireland three times, with his first in November 1995 helping to energize the peace process in the North.

In Belfast, tens of thousands of people from across the Catholic/Protestant divide gathered to hear his call to exit "the dead-end street of violence".

Clinton, who had both Ulster Scot and Irish ancestry, was also welcomed by huge crowds in Londonderry, known by nationalists as Derry, and in Dublin.

He returned again in 1998 and in 2000.

Bush under siege

A ring of steel was thrown up around the 11th-century castle that hosted George W. Bush on his first of three visits to the island in June 2004 for an EU-US summit.

Bush's visit, a year after the United States invaded Iraq, brought 10,000 anti-war demonstrators onto the streets of Dublin.

Barack O'Bama

The 44th president of the United States hammed it up on his visit in May 2011, introducing himself to a star-struck crowd in Dublin as "Barack Obama of the Moneygall Obamas" who had "come home" to find the missing apostrophe in his surname.

He attempted to rally the Irish, at a time of a deep economic crisis, declaring "Is feidir linn!", the Gaelic version of his 2008 campaign slogan "Yes, we can".

He also made a quick dash to Moneygall in County Offaly, to down a pint of Guinness (Michelle had a half-pint) in the tiny town where his great-great-great grandfather on his mother's side grew up.

Trump troubles

There was no pressing of the flesh when Donald Trump stopped over in June 2019 for a meeting with Ireland's then prime minister, Leo Varadkar.

Trump had wanted to host Varadkar, a critic of the bellicose Brexit-supporting president, at his golf resort on Ireland's west coast, a proposal rejected by Dublin.

In the end they settled on the less-than-scenic backdrop of the VIP lounge at Shannon airport.

© 2023 AFP