Joe Biden, the President of the United States, has embarked on a trip to Northern Ireland to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement. The agreement, also known as the Belfast Agreement, brought peace to Northern Ireland by establishing a fragile peace between unionist parties who wanted Northern Ireland to remain part of the UK and nationalists who favoured reunification with Ireland. The deal ended three decades of violence that left over 3,500 people dead. Biden’s trip will also include a three-day visit to Ireland, where he will support a contentious trade deal between the UK and Ireland known as the Windsor Framework.
The Windsor Framework was reached in the wake of Brexit, which saw the UK leave the European Union while Ireland remained part of the EU alliance. The deal awards special status to Northern Ireland to keep its border open with Ireland, thereby avoiding any historically contentious divisions. However, the deal has faced entrenched opposition from Northern Ireland’s pro-UK Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), which has boycotted forming a government since May, threatening the delicate power-sharing agreement reached in the 1998 Good Friday deal.
Biden’s trip aims to assure the lasting legacy of the Good Friday Agreement and support the Windsor Agreement to keep the peace. He is set to meet with United Kingdom Prime Minister Rishi Sunak at the tarmac in Belfast on Tuesday and give a speech at Ulster University in Belfast on Wednesday, “marking the tremendous progress” since the 1998 peace accords were signed.
Although Biden is expected to meet with Northern Ireland’s main political parties during his visit, the meetings do not appear in his official schedule. US Congressman Richard Neal, a close Biden ally, told the BBC’s HARDtalk programme that there would be some “gentle nudging” and “prodding” of the DUP from the Biden administration. However, former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair cautioned Biden against overly pressuring the party when in Belfast.
In a sign of continued unrest in the region, masked youths on Monday pelted police vehicles with petrol bombs during an illegal republican march in Londonderry, also known as Derry, a city located on the border of Northern Ireland and Ireland with a long, symbolic history in the tensions.
On Wednesday, Biden will travel to Dublin and then head to County Louth, where he will re-acquaint himself with his oft-cited Irish ancestry. Biden’s great-great-grandparents were from Ireland, and all left for the US during the Great Famine of the mid-19th century, which killed an estimated one million people.
Biden will hold separate meetings Thursday in Dublin with Irish President Michael Higgins and Prime Minister Leo Varadkar. He will then address the Irish Parliament and a dinner banquet. On Friday, the final day of the trip, Biden will spend time in County Mayo, exploring family genealogy and giving a speech about ties between the US and Ireland.
White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters that Biden will speak in front of a 19th-century cathedral there that was built using bricks supplied by his great-great-great-grandfather, civil engineer and brickmaker Edward Blewitt. It will be a chance to “celebrate the deep, historic ties that link our countries and people,” she said.
The visit comes before a three-day conference starting April 17 hosted by former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as part of the 1998 peace accord commemorations. Her husband, Bill Clinton, played a pivotal role in securing the deal as US president from 1993 to 2001.