Was Biden's great-grandfather a killer coal miner? Here's what US president said...

In a detailed anecdote, United States President Joe Biden on Monday (Sep 2) said that there were rumours of his great-grandfather being a part of a group of coal miners who had killed anti-Catholic mine foremen and laid their dead bodies "on the doorstep" of the homes of their families.

As the 81-year-old president narrated the strange rumour while speaking to union workers in Pittsburgh, he joked about being “disappointed” to know that his great-grandfather Edward Francis Blewitt was not a member of the “Molly Maguires.”

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“I remember when my great grandfather was only the second Catholic elected statewide in the state Senate here in Pennsylvania,” said Biden.

“And I remember they talked about – when they’d run against him in 1906 – they said, ‘Guess what? He’s a Molly Maguire'," he added.

Biden speaks about Molly Maguires and their violent retaliation

The president said that “back in the old days” the foremen mistreated Irish Catholics working in Pennsylvania coal mines after which the oppressors faced the violent retaliation of a group of recently arrived Irishmen, called the Molly Maguires.

“A lot of the English owned the coal mines. And what they did was they really beat the hell out of the mostly Catholic population in the mines. Not a joke," Biden said.

“But there was a group they called the Molly Maguires. And Molly Maguires, if they found out the foreman was taking advantage of an individual, they would literally kill him. Not a joke. And they would bring his body up and put him on the doorstep of his family," he added.

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“Kind of crude, but I gotta admit they accused my great-grandfather of being a Molly Maguire – he wasn’t, but we were so damn disappointed," the US president said.

In response to Biden's quip, AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler snapped his head back and Vice President Kamala Harris also laughed.

“That was a joke. That was a joke,” said Biden, while speaking to the crowd.

Irish American Magazine published a story in 2020 which claimed Biden's great-grandfather was allegedly part of the secretive group.

“He went out of his way to prove that he wasn’t [a Molly Maguire], and we were all praying that he was,” said Biden, while speaking to Virginia coal miners.

(With inputs from agencies)