New information on Vice President Joe Biden’s Irish roots uncovered

Trip to explore Louth and Mayo roots on the cards for the VP say aides

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NIALL O'DOWD,

IrishCentral Founder

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Vice President Joe Biden greets spectators along Grant Street during the 2012 St. Patrick's Day Parade in Pittsburgh

Photo by Rebecca Droke/Post-Gazette

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The staff of Vice President Joe Biden have unearthed new information about his Irish roots with an eye to a trip there soon after the election.

The famously Irish Biden has received an open invitation from the Irish government to come to research his Louth and Mayo roots.

Obviously, Biden backers are hoping the 71-year-old will still be vice president and possibly a candidate for the White House himself in 2016.

”He’s very fit and looks great, I would not rule out the White House run in 2016 at all,” said a campaign source.

The vice president has stated to our sister publication Irish America magazine, “I see myself as an Irish Catholic. If we have a moral obligation to other parts of the world why don’t we have a moral obligation to Ireland? It’s part of our blood.”

So far the information the researchers have is:

GREAT-GRANDPARENTS:

James Finnegan:
Born ca. 1845. Probably from Ireland’s County Louth. Died March 1, 1895, Pennsylvania.

Catherine Roche:
Born ca. 1850. Probably from Ireland’s County Louth. Died April 4, 1886, Pennsylvania.
1900 census says she was born in Ireland, but a later census says she was born in New York.

GREAT-GREAT-GRANDPARENTS:

Patrick Blewitt:
Born ca. 1834, Rappagh, County Mayo.
Died ca. 1905, Scranton, Pennsylvania.

Catherine (‘Kate’) Scanlon:
Born ca. 1838, Rappagh, County Mayo.
Died ca. 1910.

Biden also discussed, with Irish America, the Finnegan family, who fled Ireland to avoid the Great Hunger. He said his great grandmother Finnegan was the only one who could read Gaelic, and she used to read letters from in Gaelic for those who could not read and she’d write back in Gaelic for them.

The Biden name appears to have come from a Huguenot family which has been traced to Liverpool in 1668. His father, a car salesman, insisted the name was Irish but Biden was never able to confirm that.

Biden was born in the Irish heartland of Scranton, Pennsylvania, one of the most Irish cities in America. There were already political genes in his DNA.

“Edward F. Blewett my grandmother’s father, was the first Irish Catholic state senator,” Biden recalled. “He was also the co-founder of the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick in Scranton around 1908. There is still a plaque in existence in Scranton showing he was one of the founding members.”

Biden stated that he grew up in Scranton in “a predominantly Irish neighborhood and an overwhelmingly Irish parish. The centerpiece of life in Scranton was the church, the nuns, the priest the monsignor,” he recalled.

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