As President Barack Obama arrives in Ireland for his first visit, all eyes will be on his ancestral home of Moneygall. Alan Corr goes behind the scenes to meet the locals as the Offaly village gets ready for its biggest day
I have only just arrived in Moneygall and something rather strange and rather funny happens. I am standing in John Donovan’s hardware/grocery shop on Main Street (scrap that, the only street) when I’m approached by a delivery man doing his rounds.
“I’m the only Joseph Kearney from around these parts”, he informs me with a smile. “I’m from Borrisokane but they should all be talking to me, not that other fella who’s claiming to be related to Obama. Hahaha!”
The more famous Joseph Kearney is, of course, the great, great, great, great-grandfather of President Barack Obama and the man who kicked off the whole Obamania that has seized Moneygall these past few years.
Delivery made, our modern day Joseph Kearney exits with another laugh. leaving me in no doubt that everyone in Moneygall has a story to tell.
Moneygall, meaning ‘place of the foreigner’ in Irish, is the tiny village of 300 people lying on the picturesque Tipperary/Offaly border, which has become the centre of a small media frenzy since it was first discovered that its most famous son is one Barack Obama. In May 2007, church records proved that Falmouth Kearney, the son of shoemaker Joseph, left the village for America in 1849. Falmouth’s youngest daughter Mary Ann went on to become the paternal grandmother of Stanley Dunham, President Obama’s maternal grandfather.
The rest, as they say, has been quiet hysteria, as the good people of Moneygall bless their good luck and the rest of the world wonders just how the USA’s first black President could also be a son of Eireann.
But on May 23, President Barack Obama is set to enter his ancestral hometown accompanied by a huge entourage, numerous visiting dignitaries, and everybody from the CIA to CNN. The locals, for their part, are taking it all very seriously indeed. Moneygall may have been bypassed by a busy motorway and the trucks don’t rumble through town like they used to but come next week, this sleepy little village will be at the crossroads of the world for one memorable afternoon.
The race is on to have the place spick and span for the big day. Ladders are everywhere, testing the luck of the Irish, every building has been power-hosed to postcard perfection and thanks to a free 3,500-gallon donation from Dulux, everything that doesn’t move is being painted. Pavements are also being replaced, and down the road a team of labourers are busy trying to complete renovations on a large house which up until very recently has lain empty.
Jason Austin, owner of a local catering company, has even painted his house in the Stars and Stripes and the Tricolour. As Rector Stephen Neil tweeted his 1,200 followers recently, “You’re never more than two feet away from the smell of paint in Moneygall.” Three weeks ago, a dark-suited phalanx of CIA men arrived in town politely asking questions and checking out the toilets in Ollie Hayes pub. American Ambassador Dan Rooney has also been in town.
This is not a drill; the most powerful man in the world is on the way.
The Obama ancestral home is an ordinary looking terraced house on Main Street. This is where the Kearney family lived before an inheritance enabled them to leave for America in 1849 and escape the ravages of the Famine. It’s now owned by John Donovan, whose grandfather bought the house which the family have rented out ever since.
“This is the original building”, he says, as he shows me around. “There’s no record of a stone ever been taken from it.” Dublin-based company Bronze Art have plans to mount a sign on the wall that states that Obama’s ancestors lived here, but already the house has become a magnet for tourists.
“This is an amazing time for us”, says John. “To be told there was a link with Obama was amazing. The thoughts of the American President coming to Moneygall has meant a lot to the village. A lot of people outside of Moneygall thought it was a bit of a joke but Dan Rooney has gone on record saying Moneygall is the highlight of the President’s visit.”
Down in Ollie Hayes pub, the locals are sipping mineral water and coffee but there’s already a party atmosphere. This quiet hostelry has been Moneygall’s Obama HQ since the locals first uncovered their link with Barack Obama and it was here that that they watched the drama of the 2008 Presidential race unfold.
Pictures of the town’s most famous son adorn the wall and a life-sized cardboard cut-out of Obama left behind by a passing American tourist has seen better days. However, a much more permanent representation of the man in the form of a bronze bust stands at the end of the bar. The guestbook in Hayes also tells its own story. It’s full of the signatures of visitors from as far away as South Carolina, Cameroon, Cuba, Australia and even Toomevara, and that’s just the entries for the last two weeks.
It was also in Hayes’ where the eight-strong Obama Set Dancers had their first performance on Obama’s victory night, just after The Corrigan Brothers played a set. Lead by local woman Marian Healy, the rest of the crew (except dancer Mary Greene, who had a previous commitment) have gathered in Hayes’ backroom, where they first danced late into the night in 2008.
Over in the local Post Office, postmaster and postmistress, Pat and Mary Bergin, are doing a brisk trade in 99s as the afternoon turns very warm indeed. I ask them what they’ll be doing on the big day. “Making money, I hope”, says Pat. Mrs Bergin is a little disappointed at the news that Obama’s daughters, Malia and Sasha, will not be making the trip to Ireland. “Oh so they won’t be getting ice cream cones”, she says.
Down a leafy and winding boreen in nearby Cloughjordan, lies the Church of Ireland Templeharry Church. It was here that the records proving Obama’s links to Moneygall were kept before being taken for safekeeping to the home of a local parishioner Mrs Short. The local Rector is 41-year-old Dublin-born Stephen Neil. He’s just returned from Swaziland where he was working with USPG, an Anglican mission and development group, and he’s a very busy man. He’s also a polished media operator with a constantly buzzing Twitter account and a widely read blog entitled PaddyAnglican – ‘the musings and rants of an Irish Anglican priest.’
Stephen was first contacted by a genealogist in Salt Lake City, who alerted him to the possible link with the future President in May 2007. “I was amazed when I heard”, he says. “I was aware of who Barack Obama was, even though he was only on the verge of declaring for the Democratic nomination. It was a shiver down the spine moment when I realised what might be in our parochial records. I was hugely excited and amazed because the first thing you think of when you see Barack Obama is not that he’s of Irish ancestry!”
Templeharry Church and the Kearney homestead on Main Street may be the bricks and mortar of this story, but there’s a more flesh and blood link to the past in the shape of local man Henry Healy. Records show that the 26-year-old Moneygall resident is an eighth cousin of The President, related through a marriage between the Kearneys and the Healys back in 1761. This distinction has made him a bit of a local celebrity and conferred on him the title ‘Henry the Eighth’.
Henry works as an accountant for a local plumber and also does a bit of tendering, but when I catch up with him in Hayes’, he has just returned from invigilating local mock Leaving Cert exams. Henry is fairly guarded about his dealings with the American Embassy over Obama’s upcoming visit. “They’ve told me nothing. Hahaha!” he laughs. “They haven’t officially acknowledged that he’s coming to Moneygall actually. That’s how tight-lipped they are but yet I have been told to get ready for different bits and pieces.”
When he found out he was related, albeit it very distantly, to Obama, Henry’s reaction was bafflement. “To be honest, I didn’t know who Barack Obama was”, he says. “That was in May 2007. He was only a newly elected Senator putting his name into the hat for the Democrats. Once we heard of the link to Moneygall and to my own family we all became very interested in him and started following him and I was only delighted to say I was related to him. He is a once in a generation leader.”
In fact, after following the Presidential race on television, Henry travelled to Washington for Obama’s inauguration in January 2009. However, watching him from a distance was one thing; what will he say to The President when he touches down in Moneygall? “God I don’t know what I’d say to him. Where would you start?” Henry says. “If I’m told I’m going to meet him I’ll plan something. The build-up has been very exciting and I’m dreading the comedown after it’s all over because it has been such an intense build-up. Someone told me to be prepared like a bride after the wedding is over. You’ve nothing to do and it’s all done and dusted. I’ll need a holiday that’s for sure.”
Ollie Hayes’ wife Michaela is in no doubt about what her opening words to Obama would be. “I’d ask him does he want a pint”, she says from behind the bar with her three-year-old daughter Katie. “Sure, he’s the perfect man isn’t he?” Michaela says nodding at the Obama bust. “He looks good and he doesn’t answer back.”
Ollie Hayes (44), himself a fourth generation native of Moneygall, says the pub will most likely be closed for security reasons on the big day but he still has plans to get the President behind the bar to pull a pint. “He can pull it or I can pull it, whatever”, he says. “He might stay for a session but the chances are he’ll be rushing off to London. Obama isn’t just coming here for the craic you know.
It’s proven that his ancestors come from Moneygall. American Presidents don’t come to you lightly, you know, and this is very personal trip for him as well as being a business trip. It’s about his family and it will be very emotional for him. The reality is when he sees the Kearney house he will see where his family came from and it will be quite a moment for him.”
Neither is Rector Neil in any doubt about what the visit will mean to President Obama. “It will be a powerful moment when he steps over the threshold of his ancestral home down on Main Street. To come home to roots which were so unexpected and to find himself standing in the home his fourth grandparents lived in – that has to be a powerful experience”, he says. “I think Obama is someone who has a sense of history and identity and I think his sense of identity is one that is inclusive rather than exclusive. He’ll be delighted to embrace yet another element of his identity.”
Back in Ollie Hayes’ bar, Marcia Smith from Nebraska has stopped by on the way to Killarney with her Irish cousins to pay a visit to Obama’s ancestral hometown. A Democrat from a very Republican State, she’s more than happy to pose for pictures with the Obama bust. “I don’t think that a lot of people in the United States know that Obama is coming here”, she says. “But I think that could change when he gets to Moneygall.”
At the other end of the bar, Obama Set Dancers Phil McCarthy and Pauline O’Meara have stayed a while to soak up just a little bit more of the Presidential atmosphere. It’s going to be a big day for them next week but before she dons her dancing gear again, Pauline wants to make one thing clear about their famous visitor: “I’ll say one thing about President Obama – he’s quare good looking!”
