Former US president Joe Biden has made a rare public appearance in Ireland.
Biden attended Trinity College Dublin, where his son Hunter, who has battled serious alcohol and crack cocaine addiction, received an honorary award.
The former attorney and artist was presented with a gold medal by the College Historical Society, known as The Hist, in recognition of his Outstanding Contribution to Public Discourse.
In a post on Instagram, The Hist said: ‘To a society like the Hist, Biden’s recent advocacy on the state of American politics and media, as well as his work on addiction and recovery, make him a commendable figure.’
Joe, 83, and his wife, former first lady Jill Biden, were greeted by applause from the audience before taking their places in the front row of Trinity College’s examination hall.
The appearance came after the former president revealed this month that he would need to reduce promotional events for his forthcoming memoir, Promise Me, America, as he continues treatment for prostate cancer.
Biden announced his cancer diagnosis in May last year, less than four years after leaving the White House.
During his address on Tuesday, Hunter delivered an emotional reflection on his battle with substance abuse.
Former US president Joe Biden (centre right) and Hunter Biden (centre left) were pictured at the College Historical Society in Trinity College Dublin
Hunter was pictured introducing his father to others at Trinity College Dublin
Joe Biden waved to photographers outside the College Historical Society in Dublin on Tuesday
In 2024, Joe Biden issued an official pardon to Hunter, 56, allowing him to avoid prison in two separate criminal cases.
The decision sparked controversy, with current US President Donald Trump describing it as ‘such an abuse and miscarriage of justice’.
In June of that year, Hunter was convicted on three criminal charges following a high-profile gun and drugs trial.
The offences carried a maximum sentence of 25 years, although he was expected to receive a shorter term of up to 16 months.
He became the first child of a sitting US president to be convicted of a felony.
A jury in Wilmington, Delaware, unanimously found Hunter guilty of lying twice on a federal form when purchasing a gun and possessing the firearm while abusing drugs.
During the trial, jurors heard that Hunter bought a .38-caliber Colt Cobra revolver from a gun store near Joe Biden’s Wilmington home on October 12, 2018.
As part of the purchase, he completed a form and checked a box stating that he was not a drug user.
Hunter Biden, accompanied by his mother, first lady Jill Biden, and his wife, Melissa Cohen Biden, leaves federal court after hearing the verdict on Tuesday, June 11, 2024, in Wilmington, Delaware
Hunter Biden’s computer hard drive, abandoned at a repair shop and later leaked to the media, contained images of the president’s son smoking from a crack pipe
A television monitor displays the verdict in the Hunter Biden trial in the Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House in Washington, DC, on June 11, 2024
Prosecutors devoted much of the trial to arguing that Hunter was heavily using crack cocaine when he purchased the gun.
Jurors heard evidence from Hallie Biden, the widow of Hunter’s late brother Beau. Hallie and Hunter began a romantic relationship after Beau’s death in 2015.
Hallie told the court that she had also used crack, had been with Hunter when he bought the drug and felt ‘ashamed’ of her own substance use.
Jurors were shown images of the president’s son bare-chested and dishevelled in a filthy room, as well as photographs of him holding crack pipes while partially dressed.
They also watched video footage showing crack cocaine being weighed on a scale.
Hunter did not testify, but jurors heard his voice in audio excerpts from his 2021 memoir, Beautiful Things. In the book, he describes reaching rock bottom after his brother’s death and spiralling into drug use before eventually becoming sober.
Prosecutors argued that Hunter was in the grip of crack addiction when he bought the gun and had therefore lied by answering ‘no’ on the federal form.
His lawyers countered that he did not consider himself an ‘addict’ at the time and had attended rehabilitation in Los Angeles two months earlier, in August 2018.
President Joe Biden hugs his son Hunter Biden at Delaware Air National Guard Base in New Castle, Delaware, on June 11, 2024, hours after Hunter became the first child of a sitting US president to be convicted of a felony
Photographs from Hunter’s abandoned laptop, dated September 30, 2018, show him wearing barely-there white underwear and a red scarf at a party in a rented Hollywood home
A photograph submitted by prosecutors as evidence against Hunter Biden
In a separate case in September 2024, Hunter pleaded guilty to nine federal charges involving falsified records and failures to file tax returns.
He faced a potential prison sentence of up to 17 years.
However, his father wiped away both convictions.
The trials followed Hunter’s account in 2021 of how his father staged an intervention to persuade him to stop using drugs during the 2020 presidential campaign.
In two interviews with CBS, Hunter said his father, then 77, chased him down the driveway of their Wilmington, Delaware, home in front of Hunter’s daughters to stop him from getting into a car.
Hunter did not specify exactly when the incident took place but said it happened during the 2020 campaign.
In one interview, he said he had been smoking crack ‘around the clock’ and drinking a quart of vodka each day at the worst points of his addiction, which he linked to the deaths of his mother and sister when he was two years old.
He also discussed his controversial relationship with his late brother Beau’s widow, Hallie. The pair believed their shared love and grief might ‘bring him back’, he said, but ‘it didn’t work’.
Hunter Biden during an interview with CBS This Morning broadcast in April 2021
Hunter, then 51, also spoke about meeting his current wife, Melissa, and marrying her seven days after their first date. He described her as a ‘miracle’ who saved his life.
He said he had remained sober for seven years, from 2008 to 2015, after battling drug and alcohol addiction for much of his life. Beau’s death in 2015, he said, triggered a return to addiction.
Hunter said his struggles were rooted in an unresolved feeling of ‘not fitting in’, which he believed stemmed from losing his mother, Neilia, and sister Naomi in a car crash when he was two in 1972. Hunter and Beau survived the accident.
‘I am more convinced now that trauma is at the centre of it. I don’t know why I had such a hard time ever admitting that. There’s a lot of research that points to the idea that addicts who suffer from addiction suffered from trauma.
‘Beau and I never grieved the loss of our mother and sister. We talked about my mom all the time, but not the accident. The darkness that I know my dad suffered isn’t something we talked about until much later. This is why I don’t want to admit… we probably should have. I think they were trying to protect us,’ he said.
As a young adult, Hunter said he entered a period that became a ‘blur of complete debauchery’.
‘Drinking a quart of vodka a day by yourself is absolutely completely debilitating… smoking crack around the clock, drinking insanely lethal amounts of alcohol,’ he said.
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