Muhammed Ali, Victor Mooney, Alex Haley, Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Alice Walker, Ishmael Reed are not the only African Americans with Irish roots. It has emerged that Barack Obama's great-great-great-grandfather originated from Moneygall in County Offally.

Ancestry.com revealed on March 12, 2007, it had found records confirming Obama’s Irish roots. Canon Stephen Neill, a local Anglican rector, said church documents he found  - along with census, immigration and other records tracked down by U.S. genealogists - show that Obama's great-great-great-grandfather, Fulmouth Kearney, came from Moneygall in Ireland.

On March 20, 1850, a 19-year-old farm hand named Fulmouth Kearney landed in New York Harbor from famine-wrecked Ireland. He went to Ohio to live with relatives, married and had eight children. Three of his daughters married brothers in the Dunham family and one of them eventually produced Ann Dunham (Obama’s mother). Ann Dunham married a Kenyan student called Barack Obama and they had Barack Obama Jr.

Kyle Betit, a U.S. genealogist involved in the research, said "many pieces of evidence on both sides of the water" link Obama to Moneygall.

Henry Healy, a 22 years old Moneygall resident said family records indicate he is distantly related to Obama. Like many Moneygall residents, he is following the U.S. presidential race more closely and rooting for his kinsman. "It would be brilliant if he won ... he is related to me, and also it would be good for the village."

Julia Hayes, another Moneygall resident, says "I was hoping Hillary would get in, but now this has come up and I'd love to see ... [Obama] win."