Dundalk Democrat is in the Windsor as Biden proclaims, “It’s good to be back.” 

Security was tight in the popular Dundalk pub as media were ushered in and scanned by secret service agents.

After undertaking a stroll around the town where he greeted the public and even had time to pick up a few bits in McAteers Food Hall, the president made his way into the Windsor Pub accompanied by his son Hunter and sister Valerie.

“Coming here feels like coming home” is how the president described his visit and a homecoming was certainly what he got as he was introduced by Taoiseach Micheál Martin to a gathered crowd of distant relatives including local councillor Andrea McKevitt, John Own Finnegan and rugby star Rob Kearney.

“I said last time I was here in a sense I know why my ancestors [left] during the famine but you know, when you’re here you’d wonder why anybody would want to leave, I mean it.”

He continued:

“I wish my mom Catherine Eugenia Finnegan were here today. She’d be so damn proud, Louth held such a special place in her heart. 

“Every time I’ve come, the welcome from the people in the streets has been so gracious.”

“I’m so proud to be here. So proud to be in Louth,” he proclaimed. 

The President’s speech drew on anecdotes from his youth when his grandparents would impress upon him his Irish heritage and his own family’s emigration for Louth over 170 years before. 

He told how his grandfather had never been to Ireland, but “he raised his family with a fierce pride in our Irish ancestry.” 

He further told of his pride when he found out his second granddaughter was to be given the name Finnegan.

However, his message was also one of hope for the future:

“I’ve often said the Irish are the only people who are nostalgic about the future. In my experience, hope is what beats in the heart of all people, particularly the heart of the Irish.

“Every action is about hope that we can make things better, hope to build both our nations that has been passed down generation to generation by our families. And it’s hope that continues to this day.”

He summarised the message of his speech by saying: “45 years ago Pope John Paul spoke down the road, quoting St Patrick the pope said, and I quote ‘I have kept the faith, that has been the ambition of the Irish down the centuries.’

“I think that’s who we are. We keep the faith, and I’m not talking about religion per se, I’m talking about keeping the faith in who we are and what we believe.

“So my message to you today is quite simple. We have to continue to keep the faith.” 

Mr Martin also spoke at the event, focusing his remarks on the value of peace to the border town as he introduced Mr Biden.

He said that the value of the Good Friday Agreement was “so tangible and real here in this location”.

“It is a shared space, a place that links rather than divides. Peace is not an abstraction here,” he said.

“As we build on the ambition of the Good Friday Agreement to sustain a dynamic and prosperous peace, the US will remain an essential and fundamental partner.” He finished: “Welcome home, Mr President.”