Why do American presidents play up their Irishness?

PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN’S paternal surname was brought to the United States in the early 19th century by one William Biden, a stonemason who emigrated to Maryland from the village of Westbourne, in southern England. As far as anyone knows, Mr Biden has yet to visit. But this week he made his third pilgrimage in seven years to Ireland, the homeland of his maternal ancestors: the Blewitts of Mayo, and the Finnegans from Louth. He made the first of these visits, in 2016, as vice-president; the second a year later as a private citizen; and the latest, triumphantly, as president. He has been showered with shamrock wherever he goes.For a small, militarily neutral country, Ireland when it comes to coveted visits by serving American presidents. Eight have gone since John F. Kennedy became the first to do so in 1963. One hundred per cent Irish by blood, and the first Roman Catholic to occupy the Oval Office, Kennedy inspired an almost religious devotion during his visit. For decades afterwards many Irish homes displayed his photograph alongside that of the Pope. In 1970 Richard Nixon, his reputation battered at home by the Vietnam War, came looking for similar adoration, only to have eggs thrown at him by peace protesters. His visit otherwise made little impression. Perhaps, as the descendant of Irish Quakers, he did not strike enough of a chord in a country where Irishness and Catholicism were at that time still seen by many as deeply entwined.