Cap of the morning to you, Joe

BIDEN IN IRELAND: SMILES FOR HOMECOMING WELCOME | Warm thanks as he visits ancestral Louth | President vows to return and 'so proud'

- JOHN HAND

US President Joe Biden last night thanked Irish people for the “homecoming welcome” before declaring he will return , add ing : “There’s no way to keep us out.” 

The 80-year-old was speaking in the Windsor pub in Dundalk, Co Louth , which marked the end of his day’s events that saw him fly on Air Force One down to Dublin Airport after spending the morning in Belfast.

From there, he headed for Carlingford before he landed in Dundalk where a limited crowd was allowed in to get a glimpse of him.

Speaking at a podium in the pub last night, Mr Biden said: “Thank you all for the homecoming welcome.

“The bad news for all of you is we’ll be back. There’s no way to keep us out. I’m so proud to be here. So proud to be in Louth.”

He added: “It feels like coming home.”

Biden’s great grandfather James Finnegan, and wife Catherine, lived in the Cooley Peninsula in Co Louth before they started a new life in America in the 1850s.

He said that one of the great American values was the belief that “anything is possible”.

He added: “Together we have to keep working toward a future of greater dignity and as we face darkness, and there is darkness we have to face, but we must keep marching forward because the world has possibilities.”