US Congressman Brendan Boyle says he will be hoping to persuade President Joe Biden to visit Donegal during his Ireland visit next month.
President Biden has this week confirmed a visit to the island of Ireland to mark the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement.
President Biden will visit Belfast and Dublin and is also expected to make a trip to his ancestral home of Mayo.
Democrat Brendan Boyle – the son of Glencolmcille native Francis Boyle – says he hopes for Donegal to be a stop on the tour also.
“The only campaigning I’ll be doing while I’m there is trying to get him to go up to Donegal and meet with my aunts in Mayo,” Congressman Boyle told RTE Radio 1 Drivetime.
Congressman Boyle said that President Biden’s visit will have no overt political campaigning, and will be focused on events surrounding the anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement.
“This is for the importance of recognising the achievement of the Good Friday Agreement and what we need to do moving forward to keep it going,” Congressman Boyle said.
“Personally for Joe Biden and his family and his wife’s story, it has that personal element as well, which so many of us Irish Americans can identify with.”
Brendan’s father, Francis Boyle emigrated from Glencolmcille to Philadelphia in 1970, aged just 19. Francis settled in the States and married Eileen, whose parents hailed from Sligo. Eileen sadly passed in 2013.
The Boyles had two boys, Brendan and Kevin, who both entered politics.
Brendan’s brother Kevin J. Boyle serves as a representative of Pennsylvania’s 172nd House district.
The Boyle brothers are the only set of brothers to serve simultaneously in Pennsylvania’s House of Representatives in its 300-year history.
