“It’s like coming home”: Joe Biden enjoyed the first leg of a trip to the land of his Irish ancestors on Wednesday, not forgetting to declare his “faith” in America, AFP reports.

Speaking at a pub in the small town of Dundalk in northeast Ireland, the 46th US president said: “When you’re here, you wonder why you want to leave.”

Joe Biden was apparently referring to his maternal ancestors who fled the famine in the 19th century.

But the 80-year-old Democrat may also have been thinking about the contrast between the United States, a deeply divided country where he is deeply unpopular, and the warm reception he has received in the Republic of Ireland.

“Wonderful. It’s like coming home,” the American president also said while visiting a local castle.

Joe Biden took a long walk through the crowd, shaking hands, chatting and taking pictures with the many people who had come to wait for him, braving the weather and cheering as his armored limousine nicknamed “The Beast” drove past.

A Catholic president in love with Ireland

Ireland has hosted many presidents since John Fitzgerald Kennedy in 1963, but none has visited more times than Joe Biden, the only Catholic to win the White House since John F. Kennedy.

The reception he received in the Republic of Ireland also stood in stark contrast to the more tense atmosphere the Democrat found in Belfast that morning.

He made the stop to celebrate the peace accords signed on April 10, 1998, after three decades of violence between loyalist Unionists, mainly Protestants, and Republicans, mainly Catholics, who support joining the Republic of Ireland.

But the anniversary is hampered by a much more complex political reality. Local institutions created 25 years ago in which two communities, long-time enemies, share power but are blocked by the consequences of Brexit.

“I hope that (local) assemblies and government will be restored in the near future,” Biden said in Belfast, where he also met briefly with British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.