President Joe Biden has had a chance encounter in Mayo with the priest who performed the last rites on his son Beau who died from brain cancer.
Beau Biden, the former Delaware Attorney General, died in 2015.
During a visit to Knock Shrine, the president met ex-US Army chaplain Fr Frank O’Grady who is now working at the shrine.
Fr O’Grady said it was a “real reunion” and that he spent a “delightful 10 minutes with the president”.
The priest added that he was “very surprised” when he got “a phone call to say the president wanted to see me”.
“I hadn’t seen him really in eight years since Beau died,” he said.
“His son Hunter was there too, so we had a real reunion.
“He certainly misses his son. He has been grieving a lot.”
The parish priest who brought about the meeting said it was a “wonderful, spontaneous thing”.
Fr Richard Gibbons told BBC Radio’s Ulster’s Evening Extra programme he gave President Biden a tour of the basilica at Knock Shrine and said he spoke about his family, his faith and his son Beau.
“He [President Biden] was crying, it really affected him and then we said a prayer, said a decade of the rosary for his family,” the priest said.
“He lit a candle and then he took a moment or two of private for prayer.”
Knock Shrine is a pilgrimage site for Catholics. In 1879, locals said they saw an apparition of Mary, Joseph, John the Evangelist, angels and an altar with a cross and a lamb (representing Jesus).
Mr Biden, who is also being accompanied by his sister Valerie Biden Owens, has links to County Mayo through his great grandfather Edward Blewitt.
He is due to speak at a homecoming celebration outside St Muredach’s Cathedral in Ballina on Friday night, with tens of thousands lining the streets.
There is a heavy police presence in the area, with airport-style security checks in place for attendees.
Earlier, the president was presented with a brick from a fireplace that is the last surviving piece of his ancestral home in Ballina.
He also made a private visit to the Mayo Roscommon Hospice in Castlebar that is dedicated to his son, Beau.
The president also visited the North Mayo Heritage Centre, that works with people around the world who want to trace their ancestry from Mayo.
Ballina councillor Mark Duffy said people were eagerly awaiting the president’s arrival.
“This is a homecoming event, it’s a welcome home where he has family and friends in the area,” he told BBC News NI.
“It’s meaningful for the president, it’s meaningful for the people here in town.”
Mags Downey Martin of Ballina Chamber of Commerce said it was “an epic, unbelievable, out of this world experience for Ballina”.
“I mean you can’t quantify it. You cannot say what it means for us,” she said.
A star-studded line-up of Irish musicians, including The Academic, The Chieftains and The Coronas, is entertaining the crowd at St Muredach’s Cathedral ahead of Mr Biden’s visit on Friday night.
Coronas’ frontman Danny O’Reilly told the BBC’s Good Morning Ulster programme that the band was “buzzing” to perform for another US president, having previously played for Barack Obama during his 2011 visit.
“It’s a strange gig but it’s so exciting… the whole town is just buzzing for it, it’s definitely an event that we won’t forget.
“It’s one of those bucket list things you’re just happy to be involved in,” he added.
The Mayo senior men’s and women’s Gaelic Athletic Association football teams also took to the stage in Ballina.
In his speech to a joint sitting of the Oireachtas (both houses of the Irish parliament), he spoke of his pride in his Irish roots and support for the peace process in Northern Ireland.
He said the UK “should be working closer” with Ireland to support Northern Ireland.
On Friday, Tanaiste (deputy prime minister) Micheál Martin said he believed the remarks were an exhortation to everybody to work together.
“I think the context was clear from the president, he was speaking in the context of all of us,” Mr Martin said.
“He mentions the United States, the European Union, the United Kingdom and Ireland.”
Mr Martin also praised a speech the president gave in Belfast on Wednesday, saying it achieved the right balance and would help the political atmosphere in Northern Ireland.
“I think it will have served a purpose, in respect of that I have no doubt,” he said.
On Thursday President Biden met Irish President Michael D Higgins at his official residence Áras an Uachtaráin and then attended a state dinner at Dublin Castle.
He will return to America on Friday night.
Declan Harvey and Tara Mills explore the text of the Good Friday Agreement – the deal which heralded the end of the Troubles in Northern Ireland.
They look at what the agreement actually said and hear from some of the people who helped get the deal across the line.
Source – BBC News
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