Secretary of State claims descent from Irish soldier

THERE is no evidence that General Colin Powell ever danced the Siege of Ennis while growing up in the Irish stronghold of the Bronx in New York.

But the sixty-fifth American Secretary of State would be justified in telling President George W Bush as they arrive tonight for the EU-US summit at Dromoland Castle that his ancestors hailed from the surrounding Clare countryside.

For genealogists have traced his family tree back some eight generations to a former Dean of Kilfenora, Rev Charles Coote, who was one of the Cootes of Ash Hill in Kilmallock, Co Limerick. It is a remarkable story, touched by war and politics, a liaison in far-off days with a slave girl and the eventual rise of a brilliant soldier to become the first black chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the first African-American Secretary of State in the United States.