As I’ve blogged before, the whole world is trying to lay claim the the President of the United States. Now we find that the small community of Moneygall, Ireland isn’t about to take a back seat to some place in Kenya! The following is a teaser from a much-longer article found in the March 13, 2009 edition of Newsday.com.
Reporting from Moneygall, Ireland – Until recently, Moneygall’s most famous son wasn’t even human. It was a
horse, Papillon, who streaked to the title as a long shot in a nail-biter at Britain’s prestigious Grand National race in 2000.
But for months now, the modest sign marking Papillon’s achievement has been muscled aside by pictures celebrating the new hero in this tiny pit stop on the Dublin-to-Limerick road: President Obama — or, as they like to call him here, Barack O’Bama.
An out-of-the-blue call from the United States, some yellowing church records and an iPhone-toting priest have earned bragging rights for Moneygall as the “ancestral home” — one of them, anyway — of the leader of the free world.
How the family connection came about is the quintessential story of America as a nation of immigrants and Ireland as a land that supplied them, including Obama’s great-great-great-granddaddy on his mother’s side, a cobbler from Moneygall. How the tie was unearthed more than 100 years later and how news of it spread across the globe is a testament to 21st century instant communication, Obama’s star power in Europe and the natural gregariousness of the Irish.
I am from Tullamore, Co. Offaly, Ireland