Obama cult Ireland

Barack Obama was officially invited by Taoiseach Brian Cowen to visit Offaly and in particular, his ancestral home Moneygall once he starts his four-year term in January.

His earliest known relative, his 6th great grandfather Joseph Kearney, was a member of a Dublin family of wealthy wig makers who included an Irish politician, Michael Kearney. Joseph moved to Shinrone and married a woman from Moneygall called Sarah Healy in 1760.

Joseph’s great-great-great-grandson was Fulmouth Kearney. He was a farmhand from Moneygall who emigrated to the US in 1850. He settled in Ohio and later married, having eight children. One of his daughters Mary Ann, (Obama’s grandmother who died on Monday) married a man called Dunham and gave birth to a girl named Ann.

Ann grew up in Hawaii where she married a Kenyan student named Barack Obama and gave birth to Barack Obama Jr in 1961.

Offaly Independent

Newsflash morons: Obama won't be visiting your pointless little backwater village any time soon. Unlike Kennedy, Reagan and Clinton, Obama's victory was not reliant on any Irish-American bloc vote, but the overwhelming turn out of black Americans and the pandering, patronising vote of the liberal "white" (culturally vague people of European ancestry) middle classes. He therefore has no need whatsoever to ingratiate himself to Irish voters with token gestures of fealty to "the homeland". Your irrelevance is sealed.

Typically, in Ireland the US election candidate the public gets behind is the one with the most Irish heritage (or at the very least, the most Irish sounding name) which in turn translates into the Irish-american vote. Selfish though it seems, we are afterall a very tribal bunch and like most people will usually revert to backing whoever looks most like us. This time around Ireland rejected supporting the most outright and obviously Irish candidate, McCain, in favour of someone with no obvious relationship to Ireland but whom they were determined to construct a sense of Irishness for, using whatever tenuous link they could unearth. The reality ofcourse is that people and media put their backing where their liberalist outlook was most propped up - hes black, therefore it'll be "empowering" and "progressive" for him to be president and will make us feel mighty pleased with ourselves - regardless of what he stands for politically.

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McCain, however, has had a clearer policy on immigration, which would suit the Irish cause in American. Obama, on the other hand, hasn't been around long enough for us to determine what his thoughts and sentiments are on immigration, that remains to be seen. But he has stated that American companies based overseas should return to America. That would have devastating effects on Ireland.

Now, I’m not anti-Obama by any means. In fact I was one of those with smiling Irish eyes when I found out the result on Wednesday morning. But as the day wore on I began to ask myself why I was smiling. Why did I fancy Obama so much over his Republican rival? I didn't have too many clear-cut answers.

Mayo Advertiser

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Over the past 14 years, a steady parade of politicians across the island of Ireland, on both sides of the border, have enjoyed unprecedented access to the White House.

But, with America facing its worst economic crisis in 75 years, while at the same time mired in two increasingly costly and bloody wars abroad, will Barack Obama’s administration have the time or inclination to devote much energy to political visitors from Northern Ireland and the Republic?

In August, Obama caused an uproar among some Irish-American groups when his campaign released a statement saying that, while he was “committed to continuing U.S. support for solidifying the peace in Northern Ireland,” he also felt that that “the crisis period for Northern Ireland has passed and that the people of Northern Ireland are now in charge of their own destiny.”

Belfast Telegraph

By the standards and expectations most people subscribe to these days Obama will only be bad for Ireland, far more so than McCain would've. By that I ofcourse mean only one thing: money. The hero everyone is championing as the president-for-the-whole-world is about to cut off a number of cash flows from the USA to Ireland thus landing Ireland deeper in recession. every cloud has a silver lining though; less interfence within our own culture and affairs from big business America can only be a good thing.

More significantly though, Ireland's endorsement of Obama shows just how far apart Irish-America and Ireland have grown. Irish Americans saw their interests represented with McCain and voted for him. Ireland snubbed this and ignored the interests of its children abroad, who it now thinks of awkwardly and with embarassment. It's OK to send generation after generation of Irishman over the Atlantic to work and send money back to keep this usually poor, conflicted Island afloat; but once we've enough money of our own and think ourselves to have no more need for them, then we only want to forget about them (and focus instead on embracing some "new irish" [/new wage slaves]).