Biden Addresses Ireland's Parliament, Urges Britain to 'Work Closer' on Northern Ireland Peace

US President Joe Biden addressed both houses of Ireland’s parliament on Thursday, April 13, praising the work of the Good Friday Agreement and calling for renewed efforts to ensure lasting peace in Northern Ireland.

Opening his address, Biden said in Irish, “Tá mé seo abhaile,” which translates to “I am home.” Leaders from Northern Ireland were also in attendance, including Sinn Féin’s Michelle O’Neill, Colum Eastwood of the SDLP and Naomi Long from the Alliance party.

President Biden said, “The greatest achievement of the Good Friday Agreement is that there is an entire generation of young people in Northern Ireland who do not have dreams about checkpoints.”

Biden said there was more to be done to ensure peace in Northern Ireland and that it still “needs to be nurtured." Biden said the United Kingdom “should be working closer with Ireland in this endeavor,” adding that “political violence must never be allowed to take hold again on this island.”

Biden also praised Ireland’s support for Ukraine, and said the US will remain Ireland’s close economic partner. Biden closed his address by saying that addressing Ireland’s parliament was one of the great honors of his career. Credit: Oireachtas TV via Storyful

Video transcript

- You, too, have been a faithful and supportive friend of Ireland. You have been there to quote the well-known song "In Sunshine or in Shadow." So on this historic occasion, your homecoming, we warmly welcome you back to your roots. From the bottom of our hearts, we thank you for all you have done and continue to do for us here in Ireland.

Largest source of foreign direct investment in the United States. Long may this bilateral investment continue. [SPEAKING IRISH]

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Mr. President, two years ago on a cold January day in Washington, DC, you spoke of the importance of unity and hope.

JOE BIDEN: I'm at home.

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I'm home. I only wish I could stay longer. But I always have a little bit of Ireland close by, even when I'm in Washington. In the Oval Office, I have the rugby ball signed by the Irish rugby team-- the ball the team played when they beat the All Blacks in Dublin in 2021.

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By the way-- my cousin is one of Ireland's greatest rugby stars, Rob Kearney, brought it to DC on St. Patrick's Day in 2022 to give me. And I didn't play rugby except when I was out of school-- out of law school, and I didn't play it very well. We played in a rugby club. But I did play American football and a few other sports. But I realized that these guys are all nuts.

Working in partnership with Ireland, the United States, together with the European Union and like minded parties around the world, we're going to ensure that those technologies are grounded in the same core values we have championed for so long-- democracy, human rights, freedom of opportunity for everyone, not just for some-- for everyone. You know, I hadn't planned on running for President again in 2020.

My son, Beau, had just died of stage four glioblastoma after coming back from Iraq after a year. He was the Attorney General of Delaware. As a matter of fact, he should be the one standing here giving this speech to you.

But you know, I started to write a book talking about how technology has always changed the world, and we were in an inflection point in the world. And the technology was changing so rapidly and things are changing so significantly that it wasn't so much who led any country, it was the changes that are just happening at an incredible speed-- incredible speed.

Look what's happening with artificial intelligence right now. It holds enormous promise and enormous concern. Our world stands at an inflection point, where the choices we make today are literally going to determine the future or the history of this world for the next four to five decades-- literally, not figuratively. We're at one of those points.

I had a professor at school said an inflection point is when you're riding down the highway at 60 miles an hour and you make a radical turn six degrees in one direction. You can never get back on the course you're on. That's where we are as a world.

And as we meet these ageless struggles, they continue to cast a shadow on our world-- the struggle between the rights of many and the desires of the few, between liberty and oppression. And I know I get criticized for saying this around the world, but between democracy and autocracy-- it is a competition that's real.

And we're called to this work just as every generation before us has been. In this moment, the world needs Ireland, and the United States, and our limitless imaginations. I have met more with Xi Jinping than any world leader has over the last 10 years-- excuse me, 91 hours of just one on one conversations, 68 in person.

I've traveled 17,000 miles with him through Asia, primarily through China. He once asked me on the Tibetan Plateau, he said, can you define America for me? This is the God's truth. I said, yes, I can, in one word. But if you ask me about Ireland, I could have said the same thing-- one word, possibilities.

We believe anything is possible if we set our mind to it and we do it together. This is the United States of America and Ireland. There's nothing beyond our capacity if we do it together. And we've got to believe that. We've got to know that, because that's the history of both our countries.

This is about defending the values handed down to us by our ancestors, keeping the flame of freedom we inherited, the beacon that's going to guide our children and our grandchildren. It's a struggle we have to-- we're fit to fight together.

Now how is Ireland and the United States-- now is their time to meet every challenge together. I really mean this-- to raise together, to rise up in our joys and our triumphs, to preserve together and persevere through sorrows and setbacks, to dream together over horizons we can't see, and to build together a future that may be that doesn't exist, a future that can be.

I mentioned today Seamus Heaney's birthday. And I was always quoting Irish poetry in the United States Senate over my career. It's a long career, 36 years. And my colleagues always thought I did it because I was Irish. That's not the reason. The best poets in the world, that's the reason.

[LAUGHTER]

Among the best among them--

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Where's your husband? And thank you for sending me that autographed copy. It's your husband.

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My favorite poem was "The Cure at Troy." And it goes-- you all know the words-- you've just heard it so many times. He wrote, don't hope on this side of the grave. But then, once in a lifetime, that longed forward tidal wave of justice can rise up, and hope and history rhyme.

It's everything I've been taught. Rise up. We've in the past made hope and history rhyme. So today, ladies and gentlemen, as we celebrate the enduring partnership between our nations, our shared past, our present, let's set our eyes squarely on the future.

Let's harness what's best in us-- our courage, our creativity, our loyalty, our tenacity-- and our loyalty again. Let's once more, for our generation and the generation to come, strive to make hope and history rhyme, because I've never been more optimistic about the future than I am today, and I'm at the end of my career, not the beginning.

The only thing I bring to this career after my aged, as you can see how old I am, was a little bit of wisdom. I come to the job with more experience than any President in American history. Doesn't make me better or worse, but it gives me few excuses.

[LAUGHTER]

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