Joe Biden appeared to confuse the All Blacks and the Black and Tans, during a speech at a pub in Ireland.
The US president, paying tribute to relative and former Irish rugby player Rob Kearney, thanked him for the tie he was wearing and referenced a 2016 match at Soldier Field in Chicago against the New Zealand team.
He said: “This was given to me by one of these guys, right here, was a hell of a rugby player. He beat the hell out of the Black and Tans.”
The Black and Tans were British reserve troops hastily deployed against the rebels in the Irish war of independence in 1920; so named for their improvised uniforms, which often featured a mix of black and khaki garments.
The troops were immortalised in the popular Irish rebel song “Come Out, Ye Black And Tans”.
Mr Biden was speaking at the Windsor Bar in Dundalk after a day spent touring around Northern Ireland and the Republic, which ended with a trip to his ancestral home region in County Louth.
The president reflected on his family connections to Ireland, as he told a crowd in Louth he would be coming back.
He said: “Thank you all for the homecoming welcome. The bad news for all of you is we’ll be back. There’s no way to keep us out.”
“I’m so proud to be here, so proud to be in Louth,” he told the audience.
He said that one of the great American values was the belief that anything is possible.
“We believe anything’s possible,” he repeated. “Anything’s possible.
“Together we have to keep working toward a future of greater dignity and as we face darkness, and there is darkness we have to face, but we must keep marching forward because the world has possibilities.”
Mr Biden earlier met Rishi Sunak in Belfast, before meeting Irish prime minister Leo Varadkar in Dublin.
