What's up, cuz

Distant relatives want a catch-up in ancestral counties | Trip to celebrate anniversary of Good Friday Agreement

- DANNY DE VAAL

IRISH relatives of US President Joe Biden said they hope to catch up with their cousin when he travels to Ireland next month.

Proud Irish-American Biden, 80, officially confirmed he would be jetting in to mark the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement.

The trip, which is expected to last around five days and see the US President visit Dublin and Belfast, was first revealed by the Irish Mirror earlier this month.

The exact date and his itinerary have not yet been released but his extended family who still live in Ireland hope he will be able to fit them into his busy schedule.

Mr Biden's great-great-grandfather Edward Blewitt and his wife Mary emigrated from Ballina, Co Mayo, more than 160 years ago.

The Blewitt family settled in Scranton in Pennsylvania almost a century before the birth of the future President, who is calculated to be five-eighths Irish.

ECSTATIC

While his great grandfather James Finnegan, and his wife Catherine, lived in the Cooley Peninsula in Co Louth before they emigrated to America in the 1850s.

Biden's fifth cousin and Fianna Fail councillor Andrea McKevitt from Louth said she was ecstatic about his trip.