Town hopes for visit from the president

Moneygall took time out from recession blues to celebrate the good fortune that Obama’s presidency may bring to the village

KEARNEY’S FIELD in the centre of Moneygall looks like a monument to better times. At the bottom are four brand new houses built by Offaly County Council when money was plentiful.

In front are 16 sites marked out with concrete blocks. For two years, the site was for sale, but without a single taker.

The actual plot where President Barack Obama’s third great-grandfather Fulmouth Kearney grew up before emigrating to the US in 1850 has been used a dumping ground for building materials. The site would be like so many others in rural Ireland, lying fallow because of misplaced optimism, had it not been for the connection with the new president.

On Monday night, the night before his inauguration, with timing that could hardly be more perfect, Offaly County Council endorsed a proposal to build a heritage centre on the site.

Cllr Barry Cowen, the chairman of the council, reflected on how the ill wind of recession, which his brother Brian is attempting to grapple with, has blown some good for the people of Moneygall. “Luckily enough, the site is in the ownership of Offaly County Council. The market did us a favour in that nobody came in to buy it,” he said.

Mr Cowen was confident the new president would make a visit though he stressed he had no inside information to that effect. “I do expect he will come. The last Democrat president Bill Clinton had a very key role in Irish affairs and, with Hilary Clinton in a key post, I’m sure she too would like the president to come to Ireland.”

Local people are hoping that if they build it, he will come, but, with a window of three years at best, time is now of the essence. Shannon Development, the local tourism agency, is also on board. Its heritage and tourism director John King said the Obama presidency had “enormous potential” for Co Offaly and the agency was now looking for ideas.

Moneygall locals even have a date in mind. They calculate that Mr Obama will attend the Olympic Games in London in August 2012, which just happens to be an election year, and could pop in on the way home. “I was on a Canadian radio station and they were interrogating me about the Olympics,” said local publican Ollie Hayes. “They demanded to know how I came up with that date and I said, ‘I’m only guessing’.”

Hayes’s pub was, as ever, the epicentre of the village celebrations. It may have been a working day in deepest January but the pub was jammed a full hour before the inauguration began. Local schoolchildren waved American flags as they watched the ceremonies on a wide-screen television.

Mr Obama’s distant cousin Henry Healy was asked to speak last night at the Irish American Democrats’ inaugural ball in Washington. His family watched in Hayes’s pub. His sister Susan O’Meara is due to give birth in March, but, if it is a boy, it is not going to be Ireland’s first baby named after the new president. “Barack O’Meara? I don’t think so,” she said.

Obama tourists have been coming steadily since his election in November. Kristen Azzam, a native of Washington DC, would have been at the inauguration, had it not been for an Irish work visa, so she came to Moneygall instead. “I figured this must be the second best place in the world to watch it,” she said.

After the inauguration ceremonies ended, the Obama set-dancers came out wearing American ties and cravats. Set up last September, they had no name until Obama was elected in November. Like everybody else in this unassuming village, they are enjoying the attention.

“Somebody told me we were on television in Florida last night and for the life of me I don’t know how that happened, but isn’t it great,” said set dancer Pauline O’Meara. “We’ll be dancing in the Oval Office yet.”