Mark Carney arrives in Mayo for historic homecoming, first Canadian PM visit in a decade

Arrival and ancestral journey

Mark Carney landed at Ireland West Airport Knock shortly after 9am and was driven to Westport House under tight security, where he met President Catherine Connolly at 10:24am. The two exchanged pleasantries, with the president joking about climbing Croagh Patrick on the fine day. Carney is due to attend 11:30am mass in Aughagower, the village where his paternal grandparents, Robert Carney and Nora Moran, were born and raised before emigrating to Canada in 1925. He will later meet over 20 cousins, including Pat Carney and Maureen O'Malley, who are first cousins of his grandfather, and visit a cemetery where ancestors are buried.

So, Mam and Pat's father was John Carney and he was the brother of Robert Carney who is Mark Carney's grandfather! Imagine, his grandson is the prime minister of Canada!

Taoiseach's Dublin welcome

The trip began on Saturday with an event at Dublin Castle, where Taoiseach Micheál Martin said Carney's grandparents would be "enormously proud" that their "sacrifices and hardships paved the way for his remarkable accomplishments and achievements". Martin recounted visiting the Book of Kells in Trinity College with Carney and seeing a page in the Book of Armagh linking Aughagower to St Patrick. The Taoiseach joked that the saint "clearly had Mark Carney in mind" when prophesying that blessed people would come from that place.

They could scarcely have imagined that one day their grandson would return to Ireland as Prime Minister of Canada, welcomed by the people of the country they left behind.

First official Mayo visit

The visit is the first bilateral trip to Ireland by a Canadian prime minister in almost 10 years, and the first ever official visit to Co Mayo. Carney has said his Irish heritage is a "big part of who I am". He referenced the poem Thresholds by Irish poet John O'Donohue, reflecting on his grandparents' emigration.

My grandparents crossed their threshold in Mayo a century ago, into a life of a country that was still building itself, as Canada always has.

Family reunion and civic honour

A civic reception organised by Mayo County Council will be held this evening in Westport to honour the prime minister. Local historian Harry Hughes and colleagues have prepared a commemorative history of the Carney and Moran families, to be presented at the event. Rosaleen Heraty, manager of Westport's Townhall Theatre and a cousin of Carney, noted an "uncanny likeness" between him and his grandfather Robert.

Timeline of the day