WHILE BARACK Obama was in Oslo yesterday collecting his Nobel Peace Prize, his envoy was in Co Offaly investigating the US president’s Irish ancestry.
US ambassador to Ireland Dan Rooney visited Moneygall (population 298), the village researchers claim is the birthplace of the president’s maternal great, great, great grandfather, Fulmouth Kearney.
It was the ambassador’s second trip in three weeks to an Irish location linked to Obama’s ancestors. Last month he visited Kilkenny to see the tomb of John Kearney, a 19th century bishop of Ossory and provost of Trinity College, alleged to be a great, great, great, great grand-uncle of Mr Obama.
His visits have led to renewed speculation about a possible trip to Ireland by the US president. The authorities in both counties Offaly and Kilkenny are vying for inclusion on any such itinerary.
Hayes’s Bar on Moneygall’s Main Street normally opens at 6pm “due to the recession” but yesterday both the beer and music were flowing and a turf fire burning by 4pm. The pub has an “Obama Corner” decorated with press clippings, photographs and memorabilia. Proprietor Ollie Hayes said, “This is an historic day. Drink prices are down after the Budget and the American ambassador is coming – two things I thought would never happen.”
Gardaí briefly halted traffic on the busy N7 Dublin-Limerick road which runs past the pub’s front door to allow the diplomatic party to disembark safely.
Mr and Ms Rooney were greeted by Henry Healy (25), who said he was “humbled” to discover, in 2007, that he was “an eighth cousin of Mr Obama”. The Cathaoirleach of Offaly County Council, Cllr Noel Bourke (FF), presented the ambassador with “an Offaly tie, tiepin and pen” and said he hoped he could encourage the president to visit the county “in the not too distant future”.
Ger Corrigan of the Corrigan Brothers folk group presented the ambassador with a commemorative disc of their song, There’s No One as Irish as Barack Obama, which he said “has sold 100,000 copies in the United States”.
Ambassador Rooney sipped a glass of Guinness and watched the “Obama Set Dancers”. Wearing star-spangled ties and scarves, they performed two sets. He said he would be informing the president “by cable” about his visit to Moneygall and reiterated that Obama “wants to come to Ireland” but could not say when.
The birthplace of Fulmouth Kearney, a shoemaker’s son, was thought to have been demolished, but researchers at Trinity College recently discovered the house on Main Street is still standing, just yards from the pub.
The 19th-century whitewashed thatched cottage has been substantially rebuilt, and is now a terraced, two-storey, pebble-dashed home, currently rented out.
Owner John Donovan, who runs a grocery shop, said he “wouldn’t sell the house” but would be willing to “rent the two front rooms” to the council for use as a heritage centre. However, a spokesman for the council said there are “no plans to open a heritage centre” but “suitable interpretative signage” would be placed at the house.