Biden’s emotional return to the hospice that bears Beau’s name: President will make private visit to care facility with a plaque dedicated to late son and where he ‘turned the sod’
- Biden will have a chance to honor his son Beau by visiting Mayo Hospice Friday
- Its CEO described how Biden spoke movingly about hospice care in 2017
- Biden ‘turned the sod’ in a groundbreaking ceremony for the $10 million facility
When President Joe Biden drops in for a private visit to Mayo Hospice on Friday he will see that its founders were as good as their word.
A plaque at the entrance bears his late son’s name: Beau.
It represents the president’s previous visit when he ‘turned the sod’ in a 2017 groundbreaking ceremony, as well as the family connections that keep bringing him back to this western corner of Ireland.
‘We told President Biden that Beau’s name would be forever associated with this hospice , And it is. And that’s the reason for the plaque on the front door,’ said Martina Jennings, chief executive of Mayo Roscommon Hospice Foundation.
‘Both President Biden’s name and Beau Biden’s and it’s because they’ve used hospice services and they know them and he was passionate that Mayo should have its own hospice. His passion equaled ours.’
Martina Jennings, chief executive of Mayo Roscommon Hospice Foundation, at the plaque laid in memory of Beau Biden and commemorating Joe Biden’s 2017 visit to ‘turn the sod’
Biden visited in 2017 through a personal connection with fundraising efforts for a hospice in Mayo, and has stayed in touch with progress ever since
The White House kept the details under wraps until Thursday evening. Biden is scheduled to drop in between visits to Knock Shrine – a site of Irish pilgrimage – and a family history center.
Before the hospice opened in 2019, patients had to travel to the city of Galway or even Dublin more than three hours away. It meant patients ending their lives in six-bed wards far from home.
‘We just didn’t see that as dignified or respectful,’ said Jennings.
The connection with Biden came through the fundraising efforts of Laurita Blewitt, a well-known podcaster who also happens to be the president’s third cousin.
She had got to know him during his 2016 visit as vice president.
‘And she asked him to come back to turn the sod at the hospice the following year and be our patron and our friend I suppose really,’ said Jennings.
He arrived back in 2017, using a spade to dig the first ceremonial sod from the ground of what would become a $10 million facility with 14 in-patient rooms (with stunning views of the Irish landscape), as well as suites for out-patient treament.
Biden turned the first sod at a ceremonial grounbreaking for the new hospice in 2017
Biden was presented with a Mayo Gaelic football jersey by Jennings (right) and the president’s third cousin Laurita Blewitt, his third cousin, who still lives in the town of his ancestors
Jennings said Biden spoke movingly during his visit of the hospice care his son Beau (pictured here in 2009) experienced before dying at the age of 46 in 2015 from brain cancer
More important than the spade, said Jennings, was Biden’s personal account of the hospice care that helped his son Beau, who died of a brain tumor at the age of 46 just two years earlier.
‘It was the most emotional day,’ she said. ‘He was really casual and informal.
‘His words on the day really mirrored what we feel.
‘So he gets hospice … You know his family has been through hospice services.
‘And I think what really struck me was, although they had family support, and they got all the support they wanted hospice, he really felt for the people that didn’t have that support.’
He kept in touch with progress, sending a video message when the new building opened opened.
Now he has the chance to see the place for himself.
A plaque marking Biden’s first visit, and immortalizing the name of his son Buau, takes pride of place at the entrance to hospice in Co. Mayo
The $10 million facility was funded entirely by donations and opened in 2019. It has 14 rooms for in-patients, as well as suites for outpatient services
Jennings said excitement was building for the president’s visit to the area on Friday. But during an interview last week said she did not know whether Biden would have time to see the hospice
READ MORE: How 27,000 bricks from Biden’s great-great-great grandfather helped build the cathedral where he’ll speak in Ireland
‘There’s so much excitement,’ said Jennings days before the visit was confirmed.
‘We will be so proud if he came to see it because we promised him when he came to turn the sod that we would deliver a sanctuary … not just a building.
‘And when you walk through the door you feel that this is absolutely a sanctuary of love and respect and compassion and care. All of those words.
‘We want him to see that we delivered on our promise.’
Friday brings Biden out west, to Co. Mayo, on the final day of his trip to the land of his ancestors.
His last public appearance in Ireland will be a speech outside St. Muredach’s cathedral in the town of Ballina.
About 20,000 people are expected for the president’s biggest public event of the trip.
And it all takes place outside a cathedral built with 27,000 bricks that were sold by Edward Blewitt, Biden’s great-great-great grandfather, before he left Ireland for the U.S.
The remains of the Blewitt home are still visible in the backyard of an art gallery.
Ballina is getting ready to welcome Biden to town, during the final day of his tour of Ireland
As many as 20,000 people are expected to turn out for a speech on Friday evening in front of St Muredach’s Cathedral. From there Biden will return to Dublin and then back to the U.S.
And Ballina is still home to the president’s third (like Laurita Blewitt), fourth, and fifth cousins … and even more distant relatives.
Dara Calleary, who grew up in the town and is now a government minister, said those living links made the visit — his third — all the more special.
‘What he did for our hospice really won hearts,’ he said. ‘So this is not just somebody coming for a photo opportunity.
‘He came, he lent his name to the fundraising. He lent his story and his life story to that.
‘And so I think people feel they know him in a they wouldn’t know any other U.S. president.’
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