President-elect Barack Obama is truly multicultural. His heritage list has added up during this year’s electoral race: Kenyan, Indonesian, Hawaiian, and Kansas’ian? Now it turns out that, like any good American mutt, Obama is Irish, too.
According to a search undertaken by Ancestry.co.uk, Obama’s maternal roots can be traced to the village of Monegal in Ireland’s County Offaly. Apparently the future President’s great-grandfather was a shoemaker from the village who eventually emigrated to New York.
A musical group from the village, Hardy Drew and the Nancy Boys, has even written a song for the occasion.
The chorus of the song says: O’Leary, O’Reilly, O’Hare and O’Hara / There’s no one as Irish as Barack O’Bama…
and the lyrics go on to suggest that Obama is as Irish bacon and cabbage and call for the President-elect to get his jig on doing Riverdance.
During the recent election hubbub, the villagers of Monegal have claimed Obama as their own and invited him to come and visit the village, with hopes that the President-elect’s search for his Irish roots will also boost tourism to the quiet town.