Joe Biden , who is preparing to spend a few days in the land of his ancestors, is proclaiming his Irish roots, declaring “I am Irish” with enthusiasm mixed with political interest.

"BBC? I'm Irish!" This was Biden's response, ignoring a smiling British journalist, in an undated video that was very popular on the Internet.

The second Catholic president in the history of the United States, after John F. Kennedy, does not miss any opportunity to recall his origins.

When the Irish rugby team defeated the formidable Australian All Blacks in November 2021, Biden quickly called the players to congratulate them.

And in October 2020, Biden recited, in one of his campaign videos, a poem by Irish poet and Nobel Prize winner for Literature Seamus Heaney.

Of course, the US president does not hold an Irish passport, and he is of British descent on his father's side.

However, Biden does not speak in public in general except that his maternal grandparents are, citing a dynasty that was officially traced by the Irish Family History Center at his request.

His ancestors left Mayo (west) and Louth (east) in the mid-nineteenth century to escape, like many others, from the famine that swept Ireland, to settle in Pennsylvania in the eastern United States, specifically in Scranton, the cradle of the American president's family.

During his visit to Ireland, Biden will take the road in the opposite direction, and will stop in Belfast on Tuesday to commemorate the signing of the Good Friday Agreement that established peace in Northern Ireland 25 years ago, before starting from Wednesday the official part of his trip in Dublin.

However, the White House has arranged more personal stations in the land of its ancestors, as in 2016 when Biden visited Ireland as Vice President Barack Obama.

Is he referring again to the tavern that his family opened in their village? And if he visited it, he would not drink beer there, and he recently declared, jokingly, that "he is the only Irishman who has never drunk a drop of alcohol."

The Democrat, who has apparently begun his campaign for the 2024 elections, although he has not yet officially announced his candidacy, intends to revive the American "dream" and re-instill hope and confidence among his citizens, and one of the best ways to achieve this is to rely on a family story based on immigration from Ireland.

In a 2013 speech marking his induction into the Irish-American Hall of Fame, Biden turned to his family history to praise the United States, the land of "opportunity for all who are willing to work hard and respect the laws," and to affirm the right to "dignity," principles that still remain. key to his speech today.

"It's a powerful origins story, rooted in the symbolism of America" as the land of opportunity, said Quillin Parsons, director of Irish Studies at Georgetown University.

The eighty-year-old politician, who suffered a lot in his private life from the loss of his first wife and two sons, and faced great defeats in his political life, often says that he derives strength to get up and continue the path from two sources: his faith and family values.

And when he celebrated the Irish National Day on March 17, he recounted that his maternal grandfather recommended to him, saying, "Never step down, never bow, never kneel, never bow."

Of course, there is also a political dimension in the president's sometimes emotional and sometimes impulsive adherence to his Irish heritage.

And Quillin Parsons pointed out that "there is no other country that receives this level of consideration" in the United States, recalling that a representative of the Irish government is received every year in the White House and Congress on the occasion of St. Patrick's Day.

There are more than 30 million Americans of Irish roots, and Parsons said, "The Irish-American vote still has weight in strategic states such as Pennsylvania and Ohio."

However, during his visit, Biden will not be content with reminiscing about the past and folklore. Rather, the university said, "Ireland is increasingly telling a different story."

He explained that "in a period of conservative turn in the United States, Ireland is that country that confronted the influence of the Catholic Church" to legalize same-sex marriage.

And Joe Biden, despite his deep Catholic faith, is at the forefront of defending the right to abortion in the face of attacks from the American religious right.