US President Joe Biden last night urged the people of Ireland to walk with “the march of progress” to help create better futures for the next generations.
“My friends, people of Mayo, this is a moment to recommit our hearts, our minds and souls to the march of progress. To lay the foundations brick by brick for a better future for our kids and grandkids,” he said in his public address in front of St Muredach’s Cathedral in Ballina to a cheering crowd of 27,000.
“I’ve never been more optimistic – and I’ve been doing this a long time – about what we can achieve if we stick together and stick to our values. This is a time of enormous possibilities.”
Taking visible pleasure, as he has throughout the four-day visit, in his Irish roots, he described himself as “Mayo Joe, son of Ballina”.
He said, “Our strength is something that overcomes everyday hardships, and above all our courage allows us to march forward in faith.” He said his father had always told him, ‘Family is the beginning, middle and the end – that’s the Irish of it.”
President Biden said of his earlier meeting with Fr O’Grady in Knock, “It was incredible see him. It seemed like a sign.”
Mr Biden concluded his visit to Ireland in the Co Mayo town of Ballina, where his family hailed from before they emigrated to the US following the Famine.
Edward Blewitt, his great-great-great-grandfather, sold 27,000 bricks to the cathedral for £21 and 12 shillings in 1828, helping build the funds that allowed him, his wife Mary and their eight children to sail to America on the SS Excelsior in 1851.
US President Joe Biden told the Rector of the International Eucharistic and Marian Shrine in Knock that he “loved” what he had seen and he urged Fr Richard Gibbons to “do a good job”.
Mr Biden visited the Co Mayo shrine on Friday, the last day of his four-day visit to Ireland and Northern Ireland.
“He recognised how important Knock is for faith and for the people of Ireland,” Fr Gibbons told The Tablet after the president had departed the small village following a private and very personal visit.
Fr Gibbons said the visit entailed emotions from storytelling, laughter, connection, faith and tears.
The US President learned in the basilica that a priest ministering in Knock had given his terminally ill son Beau Biden the last rites in 2015.
Fr Frank O’Grady was formerly an Army Chaplain at Walter Reed Military Hospital in Maryland in the US, the hospital where Beau Biden spent his final weeks as he battled brain cancer.
Fr Gibbons said he told Mr Biden about the connection between Fr O’Grady because Beau Biden was, “The first one he spoke about when he entered the Basilica. He wanted to remember his son and he wanted to remember his family.”
The priest said the revelation brought the US head of state to tears. “I was surprised by how emotional he was.”
Fr Gibbons had only himself learned about Fr O’Grady’s role in giving the last rites to Beau Biden, a decorated war hero, a couple of hours before Joe Biden arrived at the West of Ireland Shrine. “Fr O’Grady had never said anything about it before that. I asked him why and he said he didn’t want to be talking about these things.”
On hearing the connection, President Biden insisted on meeting the elderly priest. “We walked over from the Basilica to the Apparition Chapel and the President met Fr Frank.”
The president embraced the priest and according to an RTE interview with Fr O’Grady, the priest said Mr Biden told him that his faith had sustained him following the tragic death.
After the Knock visit, President Biden, his son Hunter and his sister Valerie, made a private visit to the Mayo-Roscommon Hospice of which Mr Biden is patron. There he saw a memorial to his late son Beau at the entrance to the hospice.
Back in Knock, Fr Gibbons said the visit had been very much focused on the President’s prayers for his family. “I explained to him that Knock is where the whole interface of people’s personal lives and faith meet.”
In the Apparition Chapel, which incorporates part of the gable wall of the original church where 15 local people witnessed for two hours on the evening of 21st August 1879 Our Lady, St Joseph, St John the Evangelist and the Lamb of God, the priest presented a prayer candle to the president.
Mr Biden lit the candle and the priest and the president then said a decade of the rosary. “I said the candle is there for your own intention and your family. So we lit the candle, and went back down to the seats and I prayed a decade of the Rosary with him. Then I left him be. That moment after the lighting of the candle was a deep spiritual moment for him.”
In the basilica, Fr Gibbons told him about the mosaic depicting the 1879 apparition which contains 1.8 million individual piece.
At the end of the visit, Fr Gibbons presented Mr Biden with a mounted display of a piece stone from the apparition wall. “He was delighted and he in turn presented to it to his sister to keep for the family.”
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