Guest Essay
Biden Loves Ireland. It Doesn’t Love Him Back.
March 27, 2024
New York Times
by Una Mullally
Ms. Mullally, a columnist for The Irish Times, wrote from Dublin.
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If there’s one thing Irish people know about President Biden, it’s that he’s one of us. He says so all the time. “Remember,” he recalls his grandfather saying, “the best drop of blood in you is Irish.” He has a habit of quoting the poet Seamus Heaney and never lets an opportunity to recall his origins go to waste. His Secret Service code name, tellingly, is Celtic.
So when he visited Ireland last year, it felt like a homecoming. “Today you are amongst friends because you are one of us,” the speaker of Parliament announced before Mr. Biden addressed Irish lawmakers. If the trip took on the sheen of a wealthy Irish American searching for his roots, a constant of Irish tourism, it also cemented the bond between him and the country. When Mr. Biden referred to the Irish rugby team beating “the Black and Tans” — the notoriously brutal 1920s police force — as opposed to the All Blacks, as New Zealand’s rugby team is known, the gaffe became an instant, affectionate meme.
By the end of the trip, it was official: Mr. Biden loves Ireland, and Ireland loves Mr. Biden. But last October changed everything. After Hamas’s attacks, the Israeli bombardment of Gaza appalled the Irish. Mr. Biden, as the leader of Israel’s closest ally and chief military supplier, was seen to be enabling the devastation. That complicity has damaged both his reputation and his relationship with the Irish people, perhaps irreparably. His ancestral homeland no longer loves him back.
Ireland has long and emotional links to Palestinians, something the world has become steadily more aware of in recent months. The Irish government, for its part, unequivocally condemns the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks and repeatedly calls for the release of Israeli hostages. But it also urges restraint in Israel’s response, making multiple interventions at the European Union level and consistently calling for a cease-fire and a political solution to the carnage. Ireland knows all about cease-fires and peace building, after all.
On this matter, Ireland is something of an outlier in Europe. In a January poll, 71 percent of respondents in Ireland said they believed Palestinians lived under an Israeli apartheid system; in another poll in February, 79 percent said they believed Israel was committing genocide. By contrast, no more than 27 percent of people in seven Western European countries said they sympathized more with Palestinians than with Israelis. Here in Britain’s first colony — a status cast off through a war of independence — empathy for Palestinians is deeply rooted, born of shared historical experience.
This feeling has given rise to an extraordinary wave of pro-Palestinian actions in Ireland since the war began. The array of protests — countless concerts, fund-raisers and demonstrations calling for a cease-fire and an end to the bombardment of Gaza — goes far beyond any fringe concern. Protests in Ireland are large and spread across the country, with attendees diverse in age, class, ethnicity and political affiliation. They bring together trade unionists, Gaelic football players, journalists, ordinary citizens young and old, politicians, health care workers, L.G.B.T.Q. people and many more. It is a truly national phenomenon.
Around the world, chants at pro-Palestinian demonstrations are pretty similar. But over the winter, a specific chant took hold on Irish streets. Though St. Patrick’s Day was months away, protesters looked to the annual meeting in Washington between the Irish prime minister, or taoiseach, and the American president. At the Oval Office every March 17, the Irish leader presents to the American president a bowl of shamrock. The chant, taking notice of this tradition, was bracingly simple: “No shamrocks for Genocide Joe.”
It caught on, becoming the aural centerpiece of protests across the country, especially at the largest demonstrations on Saturdays in Dublin’s city center. It was transformed with a slight modification into a mural in Belfast, a city where Palestinian flags have long flown in nationalist communities; was spray-painted along tram tracks in Dublin; and took hold on social media, where people drew black shamrocks on the palms of their hands. Such agitation coalesced around the demand that the prime minister, Leo Varadkar, boycott this year’s White House visit.
Along with that demand, Mr. Biden became the focus of Irish ire. At protests he was rebuked by public figures, not least Bernadette Devlin McAliskey, a hero of the 1960s civil rights movement in the north of Ireland. In the press, commentators lined up to pass judgment on the American president, including the acclaimed novelist Sally Rooney, who characterized the assault on Gaza as “Biden’s war.” The criticism, at times, has been intimate. In County Louth, where Mr. Biden’s great-grandfather James Finnegan was born, a group of people gathered at a graveyard to castigate the president for betraying his roots.
The disapproval has cut through. While half of Irish voters would still rather Mr. Biden win re-election over Donald Trump, nearly a third would like to see neither man win the presidency. An open letter revoking “symbolic support” for his 2024 election campaign has been signed by 20,000 people. Given 80 percent of Irish people backed Mr. Biden in 2020 and his victory was widely welcomed, it is a startling decline in esteem for our emigrant son.
As calls to boycott the White House meeting and shamrock presentation grew, Mr. Varadkar’s own criticism of the war in Gaza became more robust. He spoke about the “hope” a cease-fire could bring and “believing in our shared humanity.” But he was never going to skip the trip. Strong relations with the United States are central to Ireland’s economic and foreign policy, after all. Even so, Irish people’s expectations for the visit, which offered an opportunity to impress on Mr. Biden their views, were high.
Mr. Varadkar did his best to relay the message. “Mr. President, as you know, the Irish people are deeply troubled about the catastrophe that’s unfolding before our eyes in Gaza,” he said at the shamrock presentation. “Leaders often ask me why the Irish have so much empathy for the Palestinian people. The answer is simple: We see our history in their eyes.”
This stirring speech turned out to be one of his final acts in office. Mr. Varadkar, worn out by the job, announced his resignation last week. Coming within a year of the next elections, the decision was certainly a surprise. But it did little to dampen the defiant mood in Ireland.
Mr. Biden often cites Mr. Heaney’s “The Cure at Troy.” “History says don’t hope/On this side of the grave,” the poem runs. “But then, once in a lifetime/The longed-for tidal wave/Of justice can rise up,/And hope and history rhyme.” As Irish people look across the Atlantic to Ireland’s great-grandson, many are waiting for that rhyme to land.
More on Biden and Ireland
‘I’m Comin’ Home’: Biden Takes a Tour of His Irish Heritage
April 12, 2023
Opinion | Maeve Higgins
Joe Biden, the Irishman
Jan. 28, 2021
Opinion | Séamas O’Reilly
Watching the U.S. Election While Irish
Nov. 13, 2020
Opinion | Shawn McCreesh
Donald Trump, Joe Biden and the Vote of the Irish
May 25, 2020
Una Mullally (@UnaMullally) is a columnist for The Irish Times.
The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.
Follow the New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, WhatsApp, X and Threads
If there’s one thing Irish people know about President Biden, it’s that he’s one of us. He says so all the time. “Remember,” he recalls his grandfather saying, “the best drop of blood in you is Irish.” He has a habit of quoting the poet Seamus Heaney and never lets an opportunity to recall his origins go to waste. His Secret Service code name, tellingly, is Celtic.
So when he visited Ireland last year, it felt like a homecoming. “Today you are amongst friends because you are one of us,” the speaker of Parliament announced before Mr. Biden addressed Irish lawmakers. If the trip took on the sheen of a wealthy Irish American searching for his roots, a constant of Irish tourism, it also cemented the bond between him and the country. When Mr. Biden referred to the Irish rugby team beating “the Black and Tans” — the notoriously brutal 1920s police force — as opposed to the All Blacks, as New Zealand’s rugby team is known, the gaffe became an instant, affectionate meme.
By the end of the trip, it was official: Mr. Biden loves Ireland, and Ireland loves Mr. Biden. But last October changed everything. After Hamas’s attacks, the Israeli bombardment of Gaza appalled the Irish. Mr. Biden, as the leader of Israel’s closest ally and chief military supplier, was seen to be enabling the devastation. That complicity has damaged both his reputation and his relationship with the Irish people, perhaps irreparably. His ancestral homeland no longer loves him back.
Ireland has long and emotional links to Palestinians, something the world has become steadily more aware of in recent months. The Irish government, for its part, unequivocally condemns the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks and repeatedly calls for the release of Israeli hostages. But it also urges restraint in Israel’s response, making multiple interventions at the European Union level and consistently calling for a cease-fire and a political solution to the carnage. Ireland knows all about cease-fires and peace building, after all.
On this matter, Ireland is something of an outlier in Europe. In a January poll, 71 percent of respondents in Ireland said they believed Palestinians lived under an Israeli apartheid system; in another poll in February, 79 percent said they believed Israel was committing genocide. By contrast, no more than 27 percent of people in seven Western European countries said they sympathized more with Palestinians than with Israelis. Here in Britain’s first colony — a status cast off through a war of independence — empathy for Palestinians is deeply rooted, born of shared historical experience.
This feeling has given rise to an extraordinary wave of pro-Palestinian actions in Ireland since the war began. The array of protests — countless concerts, fund-raisers and demonstrations calling for a cease-fire and an end to the bombardment of Gaza — goes far beyond any fringe concern. Protests in Ireland are large and spread across the country, with attendees diverse in age, class, ethnicity and political affiliation. They bring together trade unionists, Gaelic football players, journalists, ordinary citizens young and old, politicians, health care workers, L.G.B.T.Q. people and many more. It is a truly national phenomenon.
Around the world, chants at pro-Palestinian demonstrations are pretty similar. But over the winter, a specific chant took hold on Irish streets. Though St. Patrick’s Day was months away, protesters looked to the annual meeting in Washington between the Irish prime minister, or taoiseach, and the American president. At the Oval Office every March 17, the Irish leader presents to the American president a bowl of shamrock. The chant, taking notice of this tradition, was bracingly simple: “No shamrocks for Genocide Joe.”
It caught on, becoming the aural centerpiece of protests across the country, especially at the largest demonstrations on Saturdays in Dublin’s city center. It was transformed with a slight modification into a mural in Belfast, a city where Palestinian flags have long flown in nationalist communities; was spray-painted along tram tracks in Dublin; and took hold on social media, where people drew black shamrocks on the palms of their hands. Such agitation coalesced around the demand that the prime minister, Leo Varadkar, boycott this year’s White House visit.
Along with that demand, Mr. Biden became the focus of Irish ire. At protests he was rebuked by public figures, not least Bernadette Devlin McAliskey, a hero of the 1960s civil rights movement in the north of Ireland. In the press, commentators lined up to pass judgment on the American president, including the acclaimed novelist Sally Rooney, who characterized the assault on Gaza as “Biden’s war.” The criticism, at times, has been intimate. In County Louth, where Mr. Biden’s great-grandfather James Finnegan was born, a group of people gathered at a graveyard to castigate the president for betraying his roots.
The disapproval has cut through. While half of Irish voters would still rather Mr. Biden win re-election over Donald Trump, nearly a third would like to see neither man win the presidency. An open letter revoking “symbolic support” for his 2024 election campaign has been signed by 20,000 people. Given 80 percent of Irish people backed Mr. Biden in 2020 and his victory was widely welcomed, it is a startling decline in esteem for our emigrant son.
As calls to boycott the White House meeting and shamrock presentation grew, Mr. Varadkar’s own criticism of the war in Gaza became more robust. He spoke about the “hope” a cease-fire could bring and “believing in our shared humanity.” But he was never going to skip the trip. Strong relations with the United States are central to Ireland’s economic and foreign policy, after all. Even so, Irish people’s expectations for the visit, which offered an opportunity to impress on Mr. Biden their views, were high.
Mr. Varadkar did his best to relay the message. “Mr. President, as you know, the Irish people are deeply troubled about the catastrophe that’s unfolding before our eyes in Gaza,” he said at the shamrock presentation. “Leaders often ask me why the Irish have so much empathy for the Palestinian people. The answer is simple: We see our history in their eyes.”
This stirring speech turned out to be one of his final acts in office. Mr. Varadkar, worn out by the job, announced his resignation last week. Coming within a year of the next elections, the decision was certainly a surprise. But it did little to dampen the defiant mood in Ireland.
Mr. Biden often cites Mr. Heaney’s “The Cure at Troy.” “History says don’t hope/On this side of the grave,” the poem runs. “But then, once in a lifetime/The longed-for tidal wave/Of justice can rise up,/And hope and history rhyme.” As Irish people look across the Atlantic to Ireland’s great-grandson, many are waiting for that rhyme to land.
More on Biden and Ireland
‘I’m Comin’ Home’: Biden Takes a Tour of His Irish Heritage
April 12, 2023
Opinion | Maeve Higgins
Joe Biden, the Irishman
Jan. 28, 2021
Opinion | Séamas O’Reilly
Watching the U.S. Election While Irish
Nov. 13, 2020
Opinion | Shawn McCreesh
Donald Trump, Joe Biden and the Vote of the Irish
May 25, 2020
Una Mullally (@UnaMullally) is a columnist for The Irish Times.
The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.
Follow the New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, WhatsApp, X and Threads
