Vicar throws light on Obama's Irish heritage

[jefferson_dem]

Vicar throws light on Obama's Irish heritage
By Paul Hoskins

Documents unearthed by an Irish vicar show ancestors of Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama (news, bio, voting record) may have arrived in the United States from a tiny village in central Ireland as early as the 1790s.

"They're old parish records going back to 1799," Canon Stephen Neill, rector for the parish of Moneygall, told Reuters.

"They're in remarkably good condition and we have constant applications from Americans chasing their ancestors."

Genealogy Web site www.ancestry.co.uk asked Neill, whose father is Anglican archbishop of Dublin, to check parish records after discovering documents indicating Obama's great-great-great grandfather arrived in New York in 1850 before settling in Ohio.

"Like most of us he has an interesting mix of ancestry, including some impressively early all-American roots," said Megan Smolenyak, a spokeswoman for the Web site.

<SNIP>

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070502/pl_nm/usa_politics_obama_ireland_dc_1

[Kerrytravelers]

1. Ah. A wee bit of the blarney in 'im, eh?

Just kidding. I'm one myself!

So, wonder if there will be articles claiming now he'll get the Black Irish vote? :eyes:

Personally, I could care less if a candidate is green with purple spots. If I like their policies and trust their judgment, they get my vote. I don't need to be seduced and wooed, just wowed by their intelligence.

[Pirate Smile]

2. O'Bama - :)

"Between 1845 and 1851 over a million people left Ireland on 'famine ships' to escape mass-starvation caused by potato blight and ancestry.co.uk says passenger lists show Obama's great-great-great grandfather Falmuth Kearney was among them.

Subsequent research into the parish records provided by Neill revealed not only that the Kearneys hailed from Moneygall in County Offaly but also that other family members may have crossed the Atlantic before him in the 1790s, the Web site said.

Born in Hawaii to a white American mother and Kenyan father, Obama's European connection means he can also join more than 30 million of his countrymen in claiming Irish descent.

Among them is former President Bill Clinton who, like President's John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan before him, was not shy of advertising his Irish roots."

[crikkett]

3. LOL

:spray:

[AtomicKitten]

4. I knew he had that extra something special.

My grannie was born and raised in County Tipperary, Ireland.



:toast:

[irish.lambchop]

5. Wow!

From my country! I'm gonna try to get an appointment with the Archbishop of Dublin to get a peek at those papers!

[AtomicKitten]

6. ... and you joined DU on St. Paddy's Day!

welcome to DU

:toast:

[irish.lambchop]

7. I did!

And plan on spending the summer demonstrating in front the American Embassy re impeaching bush and cheney. Just hope I don't get the extraordinary rendition treatment!

[TygrBright]

8. Oh, is he what they call "black Irish?"

BOOM TISS...

>>cue music from "The Matchmaker"<<

heheheheh... sorry, couldn't resist...

sheepishly,
Bright

[illinoisprogressive]

9. I'm waiting for them to say he has some french in him