Obama’s history rooted in Offaly

THOUGH more associated with his roots in Africa, Barack Obama is one in a long line of US presidents with Irish roots.

Records uncovered in 2007 found Obama’s fourth great grandfather was a shoemaker in the midlands village whose son Fulmuth Kearney left for the US in the 1850s. He was just 19 when he left Moneygall in Offaly in 1850 on board Marmion to escape the Famine.

Kearney was destined for Ohio and later settled in Indiana. President Obama’s mother, Ann Dunham, was a descendant of one of Kearney’s daughters and a man named Jacob Dunham.