Ryan Tubridy has hit out at what he has dubbed the “snarky” coverage of US President Joe Biden’s visit to Ireland.
The long-standing Late Late Show host, who has published a kid's book on JFK’s visit to Ireland, discussed on Monday prior to Biden’s touch down in Belfast, that he believes some people have had a “too-cool-for-school take” on the visit. He added that he is not “in that camp.”
Speaking on RTE Radio One, the TV and radio personality explained that while he has heard a great deal of “snarky” coverage of the visit, he thinks it is “really good and really useful.” Tubridy said on the radio show: “I've heard a lot of snarky coverage about it, I'm not going to be snarky about it.
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"I think they're really good and really useful. There's a sort of a slightly snarky, bit too cool-for-school take on it and I wouldn't be in that camp.
“I would be in the camp that would say when the ‘most powerful person’ on the planet comes to a tiny island for four days, that's got to be good for us. Politically, economically, in a tourist sense to sell the country, all eyes on Mayo, Louth, Belfast, Dublin and everything that comes with it beamed into millions of homes.”
He continued, saying how both Donald Trump and Richard Nixon were greeted with “fiddles and violins” and that we should be “ less cynical” about the impact the visit could do for Ireland. The host added: “Don't forget Richard Nixon came to town once upon a time, Donald Trump before he was President and we had fiddles and violins waiting on the tarmac.
“This is a good thing and it's going to be very exciting. I'd just be less cynical about what this could do for us as a country.” The US president has a jam-packed day of events ahead of him.
Throughout Thursday, Biden will meet President Michael D Higgins at Aras an Uachtarain, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar at Farmleigh estate and attend a banquet dinner in Dublin Castle. On Friday he will spend his last day in Mayo, where he has family roots. While here he is expected to visit Knock Shrine and the North Mayo Heritage and Genealogical Centre's family history research unit.
His visit will finish with a speech at St Muredach's Cathedral in Ballina before travelling back to Dublin Airport to fly back to the US.
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