Boris Johnson, former United Kingdom prime minister, said President Biden told him he was not Irish, according to his new memoir “Unleashed,” which was published Thursday.
“He disarmed me completely by saying that his family origins were not really Irish at all, and that the Bidens were an old seafaring family from Kent (which seems plausible, since -den is a common Kentish termination),” Johnson wrote about an alleged private conversation that took place at the 2021 G7 summit.
“I suppose he may say something else when in Dublin. But never mind!” he continued.
Biden has proudly referenced his Irish roots during public remarks. One of the most notable trips in office was taken last year to the Irish Parliament.
“In 2016, I came to Ireland as vice president, bringing most of my family with me — my sister Valerie, my brother Jimmy, my daughter, and my five granddaughters and grandchildren. And my granddaughters are crazy about me, I might add, because I talk to them every single day; I send them a note,” Biden shared in Dublin.
“Together, we explored our family history, visiting the Cooley Peninsula — where the Finnegans’s ancestors earned their living on land and in sea — and walking the streets of Ballina, where my great-great-great-grandfather Blewitt lived with his family before relocating in 1851, eventually settling in my hometown of Scranton, Pa.,” he said reciting his ancestry.
Biden then said he always keeps a bit of Ireland close by, even in the Oval Office where he placed the rugby ball signed by the Irish team when it beat the All Blacks in Dublin in 2021.
His traditional rhetoric is one reason some foreign dignitaries have rebuked Johnson’s claims.
“One question I definitely don’t need clarity from is that Joe Biden considers himself Irish,” Irish Prime Minister Simon Harris said in response. “I think Boris Johnson is a person who seems to be very good at selling books and I hope he is certainly much better at that than he was at being a politician.”
The president has not responded to Johnson’s statements.