In Ireland, Obama visits his great-great-great grandfather’s village

Source: Associated Press

MONEYGALL, Ireland — President Barack Obama paid a joyful visit Monday to the small Irish village where his great-great-great grandfather once lived and worked as a shoemaker, an improbable and memorable pilgrimage for America’s first black president into his Irish past.

Along with first lady Michelle Obama, the president walked the thronged Main Street of quaint Moneygall, where his ancestor on his Kansas-born mother’s side, Falmouth Kearney, lived until leaving for the United States in 1850 at the height of Ireland’s Great Famine. Obama’s roots in the town were discovered during the 2008 presidential campaign.

The president raised a pint of Guinness in Ollie’s Bar, held up a baby and shook innumerable hands. He took a look at Kearney’s baptism records — the documents that established his connection to the town — and even got to meet, hug and drink with a distant family member: Henry Healy, a 26-year-old accountant for a plumbing firm.

For the president, it was a quick detour from Dublin on day one of a six-day, four-country European tour that will involve working with allies on knotty problems of war, peace and economic growth. Monday, though, was about a colorful journey into a part of the president’s ancestry he hasn’t fully explored, and that many Americans might not even know about. Obama sought to change that as he endeared himself to the Irish populace, and in turn perhaps to millions of Irish American voters in the U.S.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/obama-in-dublin-to-celebrate-us-ties-with-ireland-and-his-own-irish-roots/2011/05/23/AF3SJe9G_singlePage.html

:sarcasm:

Here's an actual post:

Funny how he never seems to spend time with extended family from the Kenyan, Indonesian or American sides, yet when a tough election is coming up, suddenly, he’s Irish! I hope people c an see through this cold-blooded weasel.

6 posted on Monday, May 23, 2011 12:14:52 PM by PghBaldy

to the inauguration, and actually attended. He seems like a really smart guy, and very proud of his roots.

Source: Reuters

MONEYGALL, Ireland (Reuters) – President Barack Obama sipped a pint of stout and cuddled babies Monday as a tiny Irish village Monday welcomed home "a long lost cousin" with an outpouring of affection. Hoisting a glass of Guinness at Ollie Hayes pub as fiddle music played, Obama thus began a four-nation tour of Europe with a celebration of his ancestral roots.

Roars of delight from thousands of rain-lashed people lining the street greeted the president and his wife, Michelle, as their motorcade pulled to a stop in Moneygall. The sleepy village of 300 was the birthplace of Obama's great-great-great grandfather, Falmouth Kearney, a shoemaker who left in 1850 to begin a new life in the United States. For Ireland, Obama's arrival, and the visit of Britain's Queen Elizabeth last week, are a welcome distraction from the global attention paid to the country's financial woes.

"Welcome home, Mr. President," a man yelled as the Obamas reached deep into the throng to shake hands.
Three babies were handed over a security barricade for pictures to be taken with Obama. Women hugged and kissed him under the watchful eye of his security detail. Dozens of American flags festooned the village's one street.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110523/pl_nm/us_obama_ireland/

Its hilarious!

:rofl:

It's the Irish "one drop rule". }(

came from Ireland, and I have no trouble thinking of Barack as a relative.

Unfortunately, that means I'm also distantly related to Cheney, as well.

Two things everyone needs, money and gall.

As someone who's mostly Irish I'd like to welcome me cousin Barack and all his kith and kin to the family.

I saw a photo of the town's name both in English and Irish Gaelic; the later name, Muine Gall, translates to "foreigner's thicket," However the term "Gael" also derives from that term for "foreigner," so it also might've originally meant "Gael's thicket."

The "Moneygall" spelling is of course the English overlord's interpretation of what they heard the Irish-speaking natives call the place.

And an interesting read. Now, it makes sense that he settled that dispute a while back over a glass of beer. I get it now.

I love it. Rock on President O'Bama!

Julie

Knew there was a reason I liked him.

On both sides of the family!

to the people of Moneygall:


"“My name is Barack Obama, of the Moneygall Obamas,” :-)

:)