Big post-Brexit breakthrough in Biden visit unlikely

JOE Biden has since the 1980s pushed for greater US involvement in Irish affairs. However, his big, four-day presidential visit this week is unlikely to break the latest post-Brexit political impasse there.

The trip is a genuine historic occasion which has drawn some parallels with that of then-US President John Kennedy in 1963. Like Kennedy, Biden is proud of his Irish ancestry, with him being the great-great-grandson of emigrants across the Atlantic more than 165 years ago.

Yet, it is a more recent anniversary that is shaping the trip. That is, the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday peace agreement which helped end the three-decade conflict (sometimes known as the “Troubles”) in Northern Ireland that stemmed from Protestant-Catholic tensions claiming more than 3,500 lives.