BALLINA, Ireland — Joe Blewitt had plenty of reasons to celebrate Joe Biden’s election as president. The plumber from the west coast of Ireland can now claim he is a cousin of the President-elect.

>> Read more trending news

Blewitt lives in the town of Ballina in County Mayo, where Biden’s great-great-great-grandfather lived before coming to the United States after the Irish potato famine of the 1840s, the Irish Times reported.

Blewitt and his sister, Laurita Blewitt, have met Biden several times -- including 2016, when the future President-elect visited Ireland -- and Joe Blewitt has already visited him in the White House in 2017, when Biden was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor from President Barack Obama, the BBC reported.

Biden’s great-great-great-grandfather, Patrick Blewitt, was born in Ballina in 1832, according to the Irish Times. Patrick Blewitt left Ireland in the fall of 1850 to settle in the United States. Patrick Blewitt returned to Ireland in 1851 to bring his parents and siblings to the United States.

The Blewitts settled in Scranton, Pennsylvania, where Patrick Blewitt became a mining inspector.

Patrick Blewitt is listed in Pennsylvania’s Civil War draft registration records in 1863, listing his residence as Scranton and his occupation as a civil engineer.

Blewitt’s son, Edward F. Blewitt, was born in New Orleans on Jan. 2, 1859. He graduated as a civil engineer and was elected to the Pennsylvania Senate in the 22nd District, serving from 1907 to 1910. He was the first Irish-Catholic to serve in the Pennsylvania General Assembly.

Edward Blewitt married Mary Ellen Stanton, and one of their daughters, Geraldine Blewitt, married Ambrose Finnegan. The Finnegans' daughter, Jean Finnegan, was born in 1917 and was Biden’s mother, the Irish Times reported.

Biden’s other great-great-grandfather was Owen Finnegan, from the Cooley Peninsula, County Louth. He married Jean Boyle in 1839. The first four children were born there, including James Finnegan in 1840. James Finnegan was Biden’s great-grandfather.

The Finnegans moved to the United States in the 1840s and settled in Seneca, New York. James Finnegan later moved to Scranton, where he and his wife, Catherine Roche Finnegan, had six children. One of those children was Ambrose Finnegan, who married Geraldine Blewitt.

After Biden’s victory, Ireland Prime Minister Micheál Martin offered congratulations, the BBC reported. Martin noted it was a “particularly special day for the people of County Louth and County Mayo who count President-elect Biden among their own."

Now that Biden has been elected, Joe Blewitt’s friends have been teasing him to cash in.

“There’s been plenty of jokes about me quitting the plumbing and going off to America,” Blewitt told the Irish Times. "I don’t think I would be that lucky.”

Cox Media Group