A surprise visit by former U.S. President Joe Biden, accompanied by his wife Jill Biden and son Hunter Biden, to Dublin’s Trinity College on Tuesday unfolded amid tense public demonstrations, resulting in at least two detentions by Irish national police, the Gardaí. The core purpose of the trip was a formal ceremony hosted by the College Historical Society, where Hunter Biden received the prestigious Gold Medal for Outstanding Contribution to Public Discourse. A significant crowd of pro-Palestinian demonstrators assembled outside the venue as the Biden family participated in the event, with tensions escalating as the group prepared to exit the site. Irish national broadcaster RTÉ confirmed that a subset of protesters advanced toward the departing motorcade and threw unspecified objects, prompting a heavy deployment of uniformed Garda officers and public order unit vans to the area to de-escalate the situation. The award to Hunter Biden has drawn public scrutiny, given his 2024 U.S. convictions on federal gun and tax offenses, which made him the first child of a sitting U.S. president to be convicted of a criminal offense; he received a full presidential pardon from his father shortly before Joe Biden left the Oval Office. Past recipients of Trinity College’s Gold Medal include globally prominent figures spanning former Irish President Michael D. Higgins, activist and musician Bob Geldof, artist Patti Smith, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, and late anti-apartheid icon Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Separately during their Dublin stay, the Biden family held a private meeting with Irish Taoiseach Micheál Martin, who shared on social media platform X that he was delighted to host the delegation, noting that the pair discussed Joe Biden’s deep ancestral ties to Ireland.