Like Joe Biden, half of US presidents had Irish roots. But not all Ireland trips went well.

BELFAST – At the start of his three-day trip to the Emerald Isle this week, President Joe Biden saluted the Irish-American architect who designed the White House.

"You know who founded and designed and built the White House? An Irishman," Biden  said during a speech at Ulster University in Belfast on Wednesday. "Your history is our history."

Biden's comment applies not just to the White House itself, but also to its occupants.

He may be – in the words of Irish genealogist Fiona Fitzsimons – "the most Irish of all the presidents." Ten of Biden's 16 great-great-grandparents are from Ireland.

But he's far from the only one with a connection.

Half of the 46 presidents trace some of their roots to Ireland, according to the U.S. Census. 

That's a lot even considering that nearly one in ten U.S. residents claim Irish ancestry.

"The Irish diaspora punch well above their weight in terms of political clout across the Atlantic!" tweeted EPIC, the Irish Emigration Museum.

'Simple dignity': How President Biden's visit to Ireland tells the story of 'Blue-collar Joe' back home

'The most Irish of all presidents': Joe Biden's roots and family tree

Of the eight presidents who have visited Ireland while in office, six are counted by the Irish Emigration Museum as having Irish ties. (President Bill Clinton has Irish ancestry but the records are patchy, according to Lynne Kelleher, author of "The Green and White House: Ireland and the US Presidents.")

"There remains something of an enigma around why this familial tie is claimed and celebrated even when the relationship is as distant as an eighth cousin," Kelleher wrote, "but still these presidential family trees spawned a succession of homecoming visits of US leaders to star-struck rural outposts around Ireland."

Biden, whose Irish Catholic heritage has been central to his political identity, has been celebrating the connection. On Friday, his final day in Ireland, Biden went to County Mayo where his great-great-grandfather Patrick Blewitt lived before leaving for the United States.

At the North Mayo Heritage and Genealogical Centre’s Family History Research Unit, Biden met with a family that owns a store located on the site of the former Blewitt family home in Ballina. The family presented Biden with a brick from the home.

He spent part of his first day tracing his family roots in County Louth.

At Carlingford Castle, the last Irish landmark that Biden's maternal great-great-grandfather saw before he departed for New York, a four-piece bagpipe and drum ensemble belted out a bespoke anthem: "A Biden Return."

"Feels like I’m coming home," Biden said as he took in the view of the water from a landing in the castle.

Presidents haven't always gotten a warm homecoming.

President Richard Nixon had to dodge eggs thrown by protesters upset about the Vietnam War.

As President Ronald Reagan addressed the Irish parliament in 1984, thousands outside protested his policies in Central America.

Opposition to the war in Iraq marred a 2004 visit by President George W. Bush.

But in 2011, President Barack Obama got a near-rock-star reception when he met distant cousins in the tiny village of Moneygall and visited downtown Dublin.

"My name is Barack Obama of the Moneygall Obamas," he told a Dublin crowd that had begun gathering seven hours before his arrival. "And I've come home to find the apostrophe that we lost somewhere along the way."

Here's a look at the past trips by presidents with Irish blood.

John F. Kennedy, 1963

The first U.S. president to visit Ireland while in office, John F. Kennedy “was jubilantly received by the Irish people,” according to Nathan Mannion, senior curator at EPIC, The Irish Emigration Museum.

Nuns danced jigs in the street. The Irish Post said his trip was “akin to a visit from The Beatles.” Kennedy, himself, later told aides his four days in Ireland were the best in his life, according to the book “JFK in Ireland.”

Kennedy’s “ascent to the pinnacle of US politics was an ‘Irish’ success story to be proud of and often his portrait could be found beside that of the Pope in Irish homes long after he had departed from the island,” Mannion wrote.

After landing in Dublin, Kennedy noted that because of the Potato Famine of the late 1840’s that prompted eight of his great-grandparents to migrate to Boston, the sons and daughters of Ireland are scattered around the globe.

“No country in the world, in the history of the world, has endured the hemorrhage which this island endured,” he said of the population loss.

Fifty years after his trip, a spark from the eternal flame by Kennedy’s grave at Arlington National Cemetery was taken to Ireland to light an “Emigrant Flame” in New Ross, the point of departure for the Kennedy family members who emigrated in 1848.

Richard Nixon, 1970

The Irish Quakers in Nixon’s ancestral tree were a much smaller branch than Kennedy’s Irish Catholics.

Nixon’s mother was descended from Irish Quakers from the village of Timahoe where the president dedicated a stone monument to the Quakers during his visit to Ireland in 1970.

But most of the Irish Quakers stayed away from the dedication, according to the Irish Independent, because they didn’t like Nixon’s handling of the Vietnam War.

The protesters Nixon faced in Dublin showed their displeasure more aggressively. Nixon's motorcade was egged multiple times, including as the president waved to the crowd.

The egg throwers were arrested. But one of them, Máirín de Burca, told The Journal in 2019 that her only punishment was a £1 fine because the judge “wasn’t at all sympathetic to Richard Nixon.”

Ronald Reagan, 1984

Like Nixon, Reagan was met with protesters when he went to Ireland. As Reagan was about to address the Irish parliament during his 1984 trip, three lawmakers stalked out to join those marching outside the building against Reagan’s policies.

“Other than that I was well received & took advantage of the opportunity to explain our Central Am. Policy which is not understood in Ireland,” Reagan wrote in his journal.

The day before, in the village of Ballyporeen, he was shown the hand written baptismal records of his great grandfather, Michael Reagan, who left Ireland in 1851.

Reagan also stopped in O’Farrell’s Pub in Ballyporeen, which was later renamed the “Ronald Reagan Pub.” Shortly after Reagan’s death, the pub was dismantled and shipped to Southern California where the beer taps now flow for visitors to the Reagan Library.

George W. Bush, 2003, 2004 and 2008

Although Bush visited the Emerald Isle three times, his trips did not include a stop at an ancestral village or other personal component

Bush never claimed any connection to Ireland, leaving it to others to dig into his roots. EPIC, the Irish Emigration Museum, says some of his ancestors came from County Down in Northern Ireland.

In a 2005 article headlined “Scion of traitors and warlords: why Bush is coy about his Irish links,” the Guardian newspaper cited local historians’ discovery that Bush is a descendent of a “power-hungry warlord” who led the Norman invasion of Ireland.

Thousands of left-wing activists had a different reason for protesting Bush’s arrival in 2004 for a brief summit with European Union chiefs. Opposition to the Iraq war had increased because of the recent disclosure of the torture and abuse of prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

One protest sign urged Americans to “vote that son of a Bush out.”

Barack Obama, 2011

Obama didn’t know of his Irish heritage – from a great-great-great grandfather on his mother’s side – until a genealogist discovered it during Obama’s presidential campaign.

His new Irish cousins were equally surprised by the 2007 news.

“The first reaction was, `Who is Barack Obama?’” Henry Healy, an eighth cousin, recalled shortly before Obama’s 2011 visit to Moneygall.

In a village home to less than 300 people, a few thousand waited in pounding rain, hail and wind for three hours to catch a glimpse of him.

“What a thrill it is to be here,” Obama said. “There are millions of Irish Americans who trace their ancestry back to this beautiful island.”

'Northern Ireland will not go back': Biden calls for sustained peace amid political unrest

Ireland trip: Biden confused a rugby team with 'Black and Tans' British military group

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Biden Ireland trip going better than some presidents with Irish blood