Biden to appoint Joe Kennedy — RFK's grandson — as special envoy to Northern Ireland - The Washington Post

Kennedy volition beryllium the archetypal to clasp the spot since Mick Mulvaney near the presumption successful 2021 pursuing his tenure arsenic main of unit successful Donald Trump’s White House.

The U.S. authoritative said Kennedy’s presumption is expected to absorption specifically connected Northern Ireland’s economical improvement and not connected ongoing negotiations astir the Northern Ireland Protocol. The 2019 protocol was established to support the bid woody struck nether the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, which was meant to support an open, peaceful borderline betwixt Northern Ireland and Ireland — a bid that has been threatened by Britain’s exit from the European Union.

Kennedy, 42, was erstwhile seen arsenic the governmental heir to 1 of the nation’s astir celebrated Irish American dynasties. He near the U.S. House aft 8 years to prosecute a Massachusetts Senate spot successful 2020 but mislaid the contention to incumbent Sen. Edward J. Markey (D). Since that campaign, Kennedy has worked diligently with the Groundwork Project, an enactment helium founded that helps communities crossed the state “build sustainable governmental infrastructure, prosecute and amended voters, and physique powerfulness for the underrepresented and disenfranchised,” per the group’s ngo statement.

He is not the lone Kennedy to beryllium named to an ambassadorship successful the Biden administration. Caroline Kennedy, the girl of erstwhile president John F. Kennedy and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, is ambassador to Australia, and Victoria Reggie Kennedy, the widow of erstwhile legislator Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), is ambassador to Austria.

The president has agelong expressed his admiration and noted his enslaved with the Kennedy family. His ties to the household highlights the notable echo betwixt the nation’s archetypal Irish Catholic president (John F. Kennedy, the youngest president) and its 2nd (Biden, the oldest).

Biden besides was adjacent to Edward M. Kennedy, John’s brother, with whom helium served successful the Senate and shared a agelong relationship and partnership. Ted Kennedy not lone showed Biden the ropes — regularly trekking to Biden’s bureau successful Dirksen Senate Office Building — but embodied for Biden the mode the Senate should run.

The younger Kennedy’s assignment comes astatine a fraught time for Northern Ireland, which has been moving without a afloat functioning authorities since February, erstwhile the Democratic Unionist Party forced it to illness implicit protests astir the Northern Ireland Protocol.

The protocol was drawn arsenic portion of the E.U.-U.K. Withdrawal Agreement and allows the escaped question of radical and goods betwixt Northern Ireland, which remains portion of the United Kingdom, and Ireland, a subordinate of the European Union.