During the tour, the priest Richard Gibbons who showed him around said that earlier in the day he discovered that Frank O’Grady, who now works at the pilgrimage site, was the one who gave Beau Biden the last oil in the hospital outside Washington eight years ago.
Biden was surprised. He wanted to meet him at once and immediately dispatched a Secret Service agent to find him.
– He cried, and it affected him greatly. Then we prayed together and lit a candle,” Gibbons said.
THE SON: Joe Biden, pictured here with his son Beau Biden in 2008. Photo: Kevin Dietsch/UPI/Shutterstock / NTB
sea view
O’Grady was a former field chaplain in the US Army and worked for a time at Walter Reed Military Hospital in Bethesda outside Washington before coming to Ireland. Beau Biden died of brain cancer in 2015, aged 46.
Friday was the last day of a three-day visit to Ireland. After Knock, he visited a nursing home and then St Muredach’s Cathedral in Ballina, which was built partly from bricks made by Biden’s great-great-great-grandfather before he emigrated to America.
In front of around 27,000 listeners who had come from afar, Biden spoke about how Ireland is not only part of his family history, but also of his soul.
Before coming to Ireland for a visit that was largely a tour of the land of his ancestors, he spent a day in Northern Ireland where he met the leaders of both Catholic republicans and pro-British unionists and urged them to keep the peace process going.
