Ireland: Welcoming home President O’Bama
On his way to a Group of Eight meeting in Paris, Obama made a stopover in Ireland to visit the hometown of his mother’s great-great-grandfather.
Barack Obama is “one of us,” said Martina Devlin in the Irish Independent. On his way to a Group of Eight meeting in Paris, the U.S. president made a stopover in Ireland this week to visit Moneygall, the tiny hometown of his mother’s great-great-grandfather. Almost immediately, Obama’s inner Irishness burst forth. It wasn’t just his charm and humor, as he joked about reclaiming his family’s “lost apostrophe.” And it wasn’t just that he “showed a suitable reverence for the black stuff”—licking his lips over a pint of Guinness. It was more than that. As he stood in the main street of Moneygall, “the connection with place which defines Irish people seemed to flow through the president.” Obama mingled with his long-lost cousins, including one who had his prominent ears. He and his wife shook practically every hand in town. “Let no one be in any doubt: He has the JFK electricity.”
It was uplifting, said the Irish edition of the London Mirror in an editorial, “to watch the most powerful man in the world tell Ireland he was back home.” Our nation has been struggling under harsh economic austerity measures, imposed by the International Monetary Fund as a condition of our humiliating $100 billion bailout. Painful cuts in social spending have touched almost every Irish person. “If ever there was a time for an inspirational leader to bring us out of the wilderness of economic misery and into the light, then this was it.” And Obama delivered.
He may have charmed the Irish, but it was Americans he was really addressing, said The Irish Times. His speech to 25,000 cheering Irish youths in Dublin was inspiring. But the “remorseless optimism of the ‘yes we can’ mantra was as much about America’s own challenges” as it was about telling Ireland we can emerge from our economic disaster. And “in speaking of his newly found roots, he laid claim to the constituency of ‘Kennedy, Reagan, O’Neill, and Moynihan’ ahead of next year’s election.” Just a month after Obama laid to rest the racist birther conspiracy theory, by presenting his long-form birth certificate to prove he was born in Hawaii, not Kenya, his trip to Ireland underscores that he is half white and shares the heritage of millions of Irish-Americans.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Yet Ireland, too, has something to gain from embracing Obama’s Irishness, said Fintan O’Toole, also in The Irish Times. “There are lots of people who look a bit like Barack Obama but are as much Irish-American as the obvious Micks.” Yet Irish history has ignored them. In the 19th century, for example, the Rev. James Healy—a half-Irish, half-black priest—rose to become the bishop who inaugurated St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York. Long after his death, he was rediscovered as an African-American hero, but he has never been celebrated as an Irish hero. The children of Irish-black unions—of which there were many, particularly in New York City—were simply considered black. Irish America “had no place for them.” It’s time to reclaim this branch of the Irish family tree. Obama’s pedigree can serve to remind us “that ‘Irish’ is not a racial category.”
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
-
Norway's windfall: should it go to Ukraine?
Talking Point Oil-based wealth fund is intended 'for future generations of Norwegians', but Putin's war poses an existential threat
By The Week UK Published
-
5 government-backed cartoons about the White House Tesla sale
Cartoons Artists take on Cybertrump, Trumpmobile, and more
By The Week US Published
-
Is Donald Trump a Russian agent?
The Explainer 'We have to consider the possibility that President Trump is a Russian asset' former Tory minister Graham Stuart tweeted last week. Do we?
By The Week UK Published
-
'Seriously, not literally': how should the world take Donald Trump?
Today's big question White House rhetoric and reality look likely to become increasingly blurred
By Sorcha Bradley, The Week UK Published
-
Will Trump's 'madman' strategy pay off?
Today's Big Question Incoming US president likes to seem unpredictable but, this time round, world leaders could be wise to his playbook
By Sorcha Bradley, The Week UK Published
-
Democrats vs. Republicans: who are the billionaires backing?
The Explainer Younger tech titans join 'boys' club throwing money and support' behind President Trump, while older plutocrats quietly rebuke new administration
By Harriet Marsden, The Week UK Published
-
US election: where things stand with one week to go
The Explainer Harris' lead in the polls has been narrowing in Trump's favour, but her campaign remains 'cautiously optimistic'
By Harriet Marsden, The Week UK Published
-
Is Trump okay?
Today's Big Question Former president's mental fitness and alleged cognitive decline firmly back in the spotlight after 'bizarre' town hall event
By Harriet Marsden, The Week UK Published
-
The life and times of Kamala Harris
The Explainer The vice-president is narrowly leading the race to become the next US president. How did she get to where she is now?
By The Week UK Published
-
Will 'weirdly civil' VP debate move dial in US election?
Today's Big Question 'Diametrically opposed' candidates showed 'a lot of commonality' on some issues, but offered competing visions for America's future and democracy
By Harriet Marsden, The Week UK Published
-
1 of 6 'Trump Train' drivers liable in Biden bus blockade
Speed Read Only one of the accused was found liable in the case concerning the deliberate slowing of a 2020 Biden campaign bus
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published