When Irish Eyes are Biden's
What does being Irish mean for Biden's presidency?
Joe Biden quotes Irish poets more often than I quote Ted Lasso. Jack Hughes takes a look at what it means that Biden sees the world through Irish eyes.
by Jack Hughes
You can always learn a lot about a new president in their first hundred days from the foreign countries they prioritize. Which countries do they talk about a lot? Where do they go for their first overseas visit? Which world leaders do they call most often? Who gets a formal state dinner or an invitation to attend or address Congress? The answers to questions like these let us look at the world through the president’s eyes.
President Joe Biden has looked at the world through Irish eyes. It’s not surprising, he’s proud of his Irish Catholic ancestry, loves quoting Irish poetry, and has been a champion of Irish causes throughout his career. In the days following his election, sources from Biden’s campaign told Business Insider he’d honor a pledge he made back in 2016 and make Ireland his first official state visit once it was safe to do so.
Among the first world leaders Biden spoke with after the election results became clear was the Republic of Ireland’s Taoiseach, their head of government, Micheál Martin. The readout of his early calls suggests that Martin was among the first four or five leaders Biden called along with Canada’s Trudeau, Germany’s Merkel, and France’s Macron. Britain’s Boris Johnson got through at some point that same day.
Like every president since George H. W. Bush, Biden then proclaimed March ‘Irish-American Heritage Month’ and hosted the traditional St. Patrick’s Day visit by Taoiseach Martin – this year via video hookup. (According to White House officials, he also later “popped in” on Vice President Harris’ virtual bilateral with Northern Ireland’s First Minister.) It was clear these weren’t just ceremonial events for Biden.
Biden’s warm-hearted attachment to Ireland goes far deeper than cold-eyed strategic interests would demand. It isn’t a member of NATO or the ‘Five Eyes’ intelligence alliance, it’s not in the G7 nor for that matter the G20. (It is, however, currently on the UN Security Council.) With a population just over 4.9 million, the Republic of Ireland has slightly fewer people than Alabama – the 24th most populous U.S. state.
It also goes beyond crass political calculation. Yes, Biden’s Irish identity helped him during the 2020 election as he took back some of the Irish Catholic vote in ‘Blue Wall’ states such as Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin which Hillary Clinton lost to Donald Trump – but Biden’s Irishness is rooted in conviction not convenience. He didn’t feign being Fenian just to mobilize the old Celtic tribes of Tammany Hall.
So, how can this help us understand the Biden presidency? After four years of Trump uncertainty, most world leaders are understandably trying to get their heads around what role the U.S. will play on the world stage. Many are cautiously optimistic, but some are testing Biden’s limits to see whether, in general, he’ll be interventionist or isolationist. They’ve got to figure out when Biden’s Irish eyes are or aren’t smiling.
First, they must understand he’s an honest Hibernophile and no ‘Plastic Paddy’ – an insult for those whose love of Ireland is limited to ‘Kiss me, I’m Irish’ buttons and drinking green beer on St. Paddy’s Day. (Biden once famously wrote: “Northeast Pennsylvania will be written on my heart. But Ireland will be written on my soul.”) This means a global mindset infused with, even informed by, emotional connections.
Second, Biden has a long memory. By that I don’t just mean his almost fifty years of experience in international affairs – he’s weighed in on world events going back to the Nixon presidency – but his overall sense of history. In his first presidential press conference Biden raised eyebrows on both sides of the Atlantic when he said his grandfather was forced to leave Ireland “because of what the Brits had been doing.”
Third, and relatedly, Biden isn’t afraid to pick sides and play favorites. During the election, Biden put Britain on notice: “We can’t allow the Good Friday Agreement that brought peace to Northern Ireland to become a casualty of Brexit. Any trade deal between the U.S. and U.K. must be contingent upon respect for the Agreement and preventing the return of a hard border. Period.” To be clear, it wasn’t a ‘one off.’
Since the election Biden has had a number of conversations with Boris Johnson and the White House readouts show that Biden has consistently raised what he has described as the “critically important” Good Friday Agreement and the increasingly volatile situation in Northern Ireland. (Interestingly, the British readout of their post-election call neglected to mention that Biden had raised the Good Friday Agreement.)
Biden’s interventions on Northern Ireland, which turns 100 years old this week, has divided opinion. To some, he’s the ‘local boy made good’ – perfectly positioned to help overcome the Brexit impasse. To others, he’s hopelessly biased – which rules him out as a potential honest broker. What foreign observers should note is Biden isn’t pulling back or backing down from past views just because he’s now president.
Fourth, Biden’s firm commitment to the Good Friday Agreement suggests he’s a fan of binding written commitments – especially when the U.S. helped get signatures on the dotted line. President Clinton played a major role in getting the Good Friday Agreement signed, and Biden clearly sees it as a U.S. achievement. We’ve also seen this trait in Biden’s affinity for the Paris Climate Agreement and Iran Nuclear Deal.
Fifth and finally, Biden’s efforts to strengthen bilateral ties with Ireland proves that he’s prepared to prioritize particular partnerships to achieve broader foreign policy goals. Just as Biden has given a lot of his early attention to Ireland across the Atlantic, he’s clearly given priority to Japan across the Pacific. Not only have senior officials gone to Japan, Japan’s Prime Minister Suga was the first leader to visit Washington.
In the end, Joe Biden isn’t the first U.S. President to play up his Irish heritage – John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, and even Barack Obama all did – what’s different is the level of priority he’s assigned to the U.S.-Ireland bilateral relationship. There are lessons to be learned, then, from how and why Biden has focused so much of his attention to Ireland in his first hundred days – lessons all countries must heed.
Jack Hughes is a communications consultant based in Canada. His previous contributions to The Experiment include “Same of Thrones,” “Tippecanoe and Agnew Anew,” “Harris / Shuri 2020,” “Bidenfeld,” “Firth and Firthiness,” “The Ballot of Bill McKay,” and “The World Wants ‘The West Wing,’” among others. His inexplicably extensive writings on Dan Quayle are “The Unusual Suspect,” “The Unusual Suspect II,” “The GOPfather” and “Porqua, CoQau?” Connect with him on LinkedIn here.
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