The people of Offaly will have reason to keep a close eye on next year's US elections after it was confirmed yesterday that one of the leading candidates for the presidency has roots in the Faithful County. Research has revealed that Barack Obama, an Illinois senator and Democrat hopeful for the 2008 presidential elections, is descended from a shoemaker in Moneygall, Co Offaly.
Previous investigations had indicated that Obama's third great-grandfather on his mother's side, Fulmuth Kearney, had emigrated from Ireland to the United States in 1850. Obama's father, Barack Obama snr, was a goat-herder from Kenya, while his mother, Ann Dunham, is from Kansas. The 45-year-old senator was born in Hawaii in 1961 and is battling Hillary Clinton, among others, to be the Democratic candidate for next year's elections.
It emerged yesterday that Stephen Neill, a Church of Ireland rector from Cloughjordan, Co Tipperary, had uncovered details which confirm that the man hoping to be the first black president of the United States has roots in Offaly.
Canon Neill was able to scour the indexed records at the Templeharry Rectory, which go back as far as 1799, to find that Fulmuth's parents were Joseph and Phoebe. He also found baptismal records of a number of Fulmuth's siblings, which confirm that Joseph Kearney was a shoemaker from Moneygall.
Fulmuth Kearney (19) sailed from Ireland to New York in 1850.
He says the research is "categorical proof" that Obama has ties with the county. "The family would have been comfortable, I would have thought. There wouldn't have been many better jobs around."
The records reveal that Fulmuth's brother William was born in 1831, and his sister Mary Anne in 1837.
Evidence suggests the Kearney family also had links with nearby Shinrone and Canon Neill is hopeful that they might even discover the baptismal records of Fulmuth there. "There certainly is room for a little bit more detective work and hopefully the full details will come out in the fullness of time," he said.
Canon Neill made the discoveries after he was given charge of the records following the death recently of the parishioner who had dealt with them. He began investigating Obama's ancestry after being tipped off by an American genealogist in Salt Lake City, Utah.
"This research will once and for all put to rest any perceptions that Barack Obama is a first-generation American," said Megan Smolenyak of ancestry.co.uk, which facilitated the research. "Like most of us, he has an interesting mix of ancestry."