US President Joe Biden’s aircraft has landed at Knock Airport as he returns to his roots in County Mayo.
Mr Biden has links to the county through his great grandfather Edward Blewitt.
The president is due to speak at a homecoming celebration outside St Muredach’s Cathedral in Ballina on Friday night.
A crowd of up to 20,000 people are expected to line the streets of the town for the event.
It is thought that the president will be presented with a brick from a fireplace that is the last surviving piece of his ancestral home in the town.
The mayor of Ballina, 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.
“I hope there is respect given to that because they are true ties, they are sincere links, it’s not engineered, it’s not fabricated.
“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.
“On the one hand, it’s a very monumental day – we’re welcoming the President Joe Biden back. He was here in 2016 as VP [vice president], had a lovely walk about the town, thoroughly enjoyed it and all the locals got to meet him and shake his hand.
“This is a very different experience this time, but equally extremely important and symbolic that he’s decided to come back to Ballina, come back to his home in County Mayo.”
A star-studded line-up of Irish musicians, including The Academic, The Chieftains and The Coronas, is set to entertain the crowd at St Muredach’s Cathedral on Friday.
Coronas’ frontman Danny O’Reilly told the BBC’s Good Morning Ulster programme that the band are”buzzing” to perform for another US president, having previously played for Barrack Obama during his 2011 visit.
“We were literally just asked to get involved earlier this week and it’s been all go, a lot of security, a lot of planning,” he said.
“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.
Mr O’Reilly added he understands the Mayo GAA (Gaelic Athletic Association) team and former Irish president Mary Robinson will also be taking to the stage.
Mr Biden will make a couple of stops on the way to Ballina, including at Knock Shrine in the county.
The shrine is a holy site and 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).
According to Irish tourism sites, 1.5m pilgrims visit Knock Shrine every year.
The president will also visit the North Mayo Heritage Centre.
Its family history research unit works with people around the world who want to trace their ancestry from Mayo.
Gardai [Irish police] in County Mayo have announced a number of traffic restrictions surrounding the presidential visit.
Diversions will be in place on the Westport side of Castlebar Town from 12:00 local time to 17:00 and there will be restrictions on the N17 between Charlestown and Claremorris and the N5 between Charlestown and Castlebar.
Access to Mayo University Hospital will be affected by traffic diversions.
In Ballina, from 10:00 on Friday until after the event in the town finishes, access will be restricted to local residents and business workers only.
On Thursday, President Biden declared he was home as he made an historic address to the Irish Parliament.
‘Working more closely’
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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