A souvenir to round off his unforgettable visit to Ireland.
Biden finishes the last of his Irish visit in County Mayo today, after spending Thursday in Dublin, Wednesday in Louth, and Tuesday in Belfast. There has been many a comical moment, from a Black and Tans slip, to a deli stopover, to overly polite quips about the weather. Basically it’s been everything, and more, that we could expect from a US presidential visit.
But nothing sums up the journey more than the parting gift that is heading back to the States with Biden. A brick, from his ancestral home.
According to The Irish Examiner, “The great, great, great-grandfather of President Biden, entrepreneur and ‘brickman’ Edward Blewitt, lived in a cottage at the rear of what is now Caffrey’s Art Gallery on Garden Street in the 1820s.”
There isn’t much left of the cottage, but the current gallery owner, Ernie Caffrey, made a significant effort to extract a brick from the remaining fireplace to gift the President.
In a conversation with the Irish Examiner ahead of the visit, Caffrey said this of the brick:
“We got a quotation from the minutes of the Cathedral in 1828 and we inscribed that under the brick. We’ll present that to him on Friday. A piece of the old homestead.”
It’s giving…
https://t.co/MSSQm9xWBS pic.twitter.com/Y3XwO3LDcJ
— Kevin (@caoimhinof) April 14, 2023
Header images via Shutterstock
READ ON:
– Teen makes crazy golf course out of potholes on his road
– ‘Alcoholic dog’ first of its kind to be treated for addiction
– Refurbishment of Dublin’s historic fruit and veg market could begin later this year
