Joe Biden was met at the Áras by President Higgins and his wife Sabina at 11:50am before posing for photographs and then proceeding to the Drawing Room where he was introduced to Tánaiste Micheál Martin and Secretary General Orla O’Hanrahan.

President Higgins then lead President Biden down the Francini corridor, into the State Reception Room and to the table with the Visitors Book in the State Reception Room.

After signing the book members of the US delegation were escorted to their positions in the line-up to the right of the Portico, and the Irish Delegation were escorted from the Council of State Room to their positions to the left of the Portico.

President Higgins then introduced the Defence Forces Chief of Staff Lt. General Seán Clancy and Bridgadier General Tony Cudmore, General Officer Commanding, 2nd Brigade to President Biden, and the Guard of Honour presented Arms and the National Anthems of United States and Ireland were played.

President Biden was invited to inspect the Guard of Honour and then the two Presidents went to President Higgins’s Study for a private meeting.

Then in perfect sunshine, Joe Biden walked with Michael D Higgins and Sabina Higgins from the Aras into the gardens and was introduced Head Gardener Donal Nugent and a ceremony to plant an Irish oak took place.

Biden then asked President and Sabina Higgins if his great grandchildren would be able to come back and climb the tree in the future, and he was assured by Michael D Higgins that they would.

While planting the tree, four army buglers played a fanfare.

He is the fifth president to plant a tree at the Áras since John F Kennedy, Ronald Regan, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.

The Presidents and Sabina Higgins then walked the short distance to the Peace Bell which was first unveiled in 2008 by then President Mary McAleese to mark the tenth anniversary of the Agreement.

Dating from the 19th Century, the bell is suspended from an oak beam that came from the Aras grounds, supported by oak beams which came from Co Antrim and Co Dublin.

“For Ireland,” he said before the first ring. “For the United States,” he said before the second ring.

“This is for my Irish ancestors,” he said before ringing the bell a third time, and then “a fourth one for peace”, before ringing it a final time.

Asked how he was feeling, Joe Biden said: “I’m feeling great and learned a lot hanging out with the president.”

Asked what it’s like to be home, Biden said it felt great. “You know, I know it sounds silly but there's so many Irish Americans, like my relatives who got to America in 1844, 45 and 46, who've never been back here, and they talk about it. You hear all these stories about what it was like back in Ireland,” he said, adding that during his first trip to Ireland he went down to River Boyne and his grandfather Finnegan used to talk about his own grandfather Owen Finnegan, compared the Boyne Valley to Scranton, in Pennsylvania.

“I thought ‘how can that be?’ but you stand there, and you look, and in Scranton, there’s a river that runs through it called the Lackawanna River, and a mountain on either side and the valley. And where he lived you can look down and see how 100 years earlier, it would look like the Boyne. It’s just so great to always have an excuse to be back,” he said.

Speaking about his hopes for the peace process in Northern Ireland for the next 25 years, he said he hopes that communities get even closer.

“I hope the Government begins to function as it used to in terms of functioning as a representative body in the North. I think that’s necessary but that’s for you all to decide, not for me to decide,” he said.

“I’m very proud of my colleague George Mitchell. I think he did a fine job,” he added.

Biden was asked whether he can provide an update if the leaked Pentagon documents investigation, a question he had not answered when asked it after signing the visitors book.

“I can’t right now. There’s a full-blown investigation going on, as you know, with the intelligence community and the Justice Department, and they're getting close,” he replied.

“I'm not concerned about the leak. I'm concerned that it happened. But there's nothing contemporaneous that I'm aware of that’s of great consequence,” he added.

Just as he was about to leave, radio journalist Henry McKean asked the President for a selfie photograph, and Joe Biden obliged him.

Asked why Irish shoemakers make great presidents Biden said his great great grandfather left from the same port five weeks after Barack Obama’s great great grandfather.

“The idea that they would both seek a new life and think their great great grandsons could end up being president of the United States is remarkable. That’s the Irish of it,” he said before going back inside and later departing for Farmleigh to meet with Taoiseach Leo Varadkar.