It was supposed to be the quiet honour of the season. On Tuesday, former President Joe Biden and Dr. Jill Biden made a surprise visit to Trinity College Dublin, where the College Historical Society — the Hist, the university's famed debating society — presented their son Hunter Biden with its Gold Medal for Outstanding Contribution to Public Discourse. Outside the hall, Dublin had prepared a different reception.
Pro-Palestinian protesters gathered outside the Examination Hall waving Palestinian flags and an Irish tricolour, chanting "shame" at the family as the ceremony went on inside. The Hist's citation praised Hunter Biden as a critic of the Trump administration and an advocate on addiction and recovery. The street's verdict was about something else — his father's record on Gaza — and it was delivered at full volume.
Then, as Joe Biden left the venue, some in the crowd moved forward and objects were thrown — Irish media reported milk among them. Garda public order units, vans already on site, moved in; at least two arrests were made, and protesters at one point blocked a public order van carrying an arrested demonstrator away. The former president, who earlier in the visit met Taoiseach Micheál Martin, was driven away through the commotion.
The contrast is the story. Hunter Biden was convicted in the United States of gun and tax crimes in June 2024 and pardoned by his father later that year, while his father was still president — a pardon that made his name a byword in Washington for family influence. In Dublin, an elite debating society medals that same man for his contribution to public discourse, while outside, the public holds its own debate — and the former president, now undergoing treatment for an aggressive prostate cancer, gets the reception his party's left wing has promised him since Gaza. Two rooms, two verdicts: the one inside the hall, and the one on the street.
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