Mark Carney visits ancestral village in Mayo

Canadian prime minister heads west to ancestral homeland 27 minutes agoShareSaveAdd as preferred on GoogleEmmet McElhattonBBC News NIPA MediaCanadian Prime Minister Mark Carney met Irish President Catherine Connolly on SundayCanadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has travelled to County Mayo on the second day of his visit to the Republic of Ireland.Carney, who spent Saturday in Dublin with Taoiseach (Irish PM) Micheál Martin, met his cousins on Sunday in Aughagower - the village his grandparents, Robert and Nora Moran, left when they emigrated to Canada in 1925.Carney has said he is proud of his family heritage and described his Irish ancestry as a "big part of who I am".Irish President Catherine Connolly met Carney in Westport House on Sunday morning.Speaking to Irish broadcaster RTÉ, Carney said he was encouraged by the progress made towards a potential and more durable ceasefire between the US and Iran.He said the question of how to "reinforce" the ceasefire would be "topic number one" for Monday's G7 Summit in France.PA MediaCarney met his oldest living relatives Maureen and Pat CarneyDuring his Mayo visit, the Canadian prime minister and his wife Diana Fox Carney attended Mass at the parish church and visited a graveyard where some of his relatives are buried. When asked what it was like to be in Aughagower, Carney said: "It's fantastic to be back, I've been here twice, but no one noticed the last few times I came, so it's a great thrill."Carney met more than 20 of his cousins including Pat Carney and Maureen O'Malley, first cousins of his father and two of the prime minister's closest Irish relatives.After Mass, Carney planted an Irish oak tree in the cemetery.He joked that he had a previous "career as a gardener", and his wife Diana Fox quoted Christy Moore's Don't Forget Your Shovel as he worked.Speaking after the Mass, he thanked people for coming and encouraged them to v...