Joe Biden in Ireland: President concludes visit in County Mayo

US President Joe Biden will return to his roots in County Mayo on Friday on the final day of his visit to Ireland.

Mr Biden has links to the county through his great grandfather Edward Blewitt.

The president is due to speak at a homecoming celebration outside St Muredach's Cathedral in the town of Ballina on Friday night.

A crowd of up to 20,000 people are expected to line the streets of the town for the event.

It is expected that the president will be presented with a brick from a fireplace that is the last surviving piece of his ancestral home in the town.

The mayor of Ballina, Mark Duffy, said people were eagerly awaiting the president's arrival.

"This is a homecoming event, it's a welcome home where he has family and friends in the area," he told BBC News NI.

"I hope there is respect given to that because they are true ties, they are sincere links, it's not engineered, it's not fabricated.

"It's meaningful for the president, it's meaningful for the people here in town."

Mags Downey Martin of Ballina Chamber of Commerce said it was "an epic, unbelievable, out of this world experience for Ballina".

"I mean you can't quantify it. You cannot say what it means for us," she said.

"On the one hand, it's a very monumental day - we're welcoming the President Joe Biden back. He was here in 2016 as VP [vice president], had a lovely walk about the town, thoroughly enjoyed it and all the locals got to meet him and shake his hand.

"This is a very different experience this time, but equally extremely important and symbolic that he's decided to come back to Ballina, come back to his home in County Mayo."

Mr Biden will make a couple of stops on the way to Ballina, including at Knock Shrine in the county.

The shrine is a holy site and pilgrimage site for Catholics.

In 1879 locals said they saw an apparition of Mary, Joseph, John the Evangelist, angels and an altar with a cross and a lamb (representing Jesus).

Pope John Paul II made a pilgrimage there in 1979 to mark the centennial of the apparition. According to Irish tourism sites, 1.5m pilgrims visit Knock Shrine every year.

The president will also visit the North Mayo Heritage Centre.

Its family history research unit works with people around the world who want to trace their ancestry from Mayo.

Gardai [Irish police] in County Mayo have announced a number of traffic restrictions surrounding the presidential visit.

Diversions will be in place on the Westport side of Castlebar Town from 12:00 local time to 17:00 and there will be restrictions on the N17 between Charlestown and Claremorris and the N5 between Charlestown and Castlebar.

Access to Mayo University Hospital will be affected by traffic diversions.

In Ballina, from 10:00 on Friday until after the event in the town finishes, access will be restricted to local residents and business workers only.

In his speech to a joint sitting of the Oireachtas (both houses of the Irish parliament), he spoke of his pride in his Irish roots and support for the peace process in Northern Ireland.

He said the UK "should be working closer" with Ireland to support Northern Ireland.

He then travelled to County Louth on Wednesday afternoon before a series of engagements in Dublin on Thursday, including meeting Irish President Michael D Higgins at his official residence Áras an Uachtaráin.

On Thursday night he attended a state dinner at Dublin Castle.

President Biden received a standing ovation as he once again spoke about the special relationship between Ireland and the US.

The president will return to America from Ireland West Airport in Knock on Friday night.

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