A beaming Joe Biden approvingly told a packed pub in Ireland that his distant relative ‘beat the hell out of the Black and Tans’ – an infamous British militia sent to Ireland in the 1920s to try and stamp out Irish nationalism.
Biden’s remark was seen by some as a gaffe: he was referring to Rob Kearney, a rugby player who famously beat the All Blacks.
But others thought it was a Freudian slip – a nod by Biden to his own stridently pro-Ireland feelings.
Former Democratic Unionist party leader Arlene Foster said on the eve of his arrival that the US president ‘hates the UK’ – forcing Biden’s senior aide, Amanda Sloat, to insist on Wednesday that he was ‘not anti-British’.
Yet Biden’s reference to the Black and Tans has only served to reinforce the idea of his pro-nationalist attitude.
Joe Biden is pictured on Wednesday at the Windsor Bar in Dundalk, Ireland with Michael Martin, the Tánaiste, Minister for Foreign Affairs and Minister for Defence
Biden referenced Rob Kearney…
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