World News for Students of English

17-04-2023 07:00

On Tuesday evening, the president of the United States, Joe Biden, came to Belfast for a visit to the island of Ireland. He came to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement, which helped stop violence in Northern Ireland.

Biden is Irish Catholic, and during his four-day trip, he went to his family’s ancestral homes in Louth and Mayo. Many US presidents have Irish ancestry, including the seventh president, Andrew Jackson, whose parents were from County Antrim. The most famous Irish-American president was John F. Kennedy, the first Catholic president of the United States. He visited Ireland in 1963 when the country was young and independent. Its president, Eamon de Valera, was a symbol of Catholic Irishness and national liberation. Barack Obama visited Ireland in May 2011 and went to the country of Offaly, where his great-great-grandfather came from before emigrating to the United States. Two years later, Obama visited Belfast, where he was very popular with the locals.

Difficult words: ancestral (relating to members of the family from the past), ancestry (the line of people who lived in the family before), liberation (setting a country free).

You can watch the original video in the Level 3 section.