O'Bama? Why Irish Eyes Are Smiling

By Carl Sullivan 

The gift of gab is no handicap in politics, so it’s not surprising that the 2008 presidential and VP candidates have Irish roots-all of them. This is probably the most Irish ticket collectively in American history,” says Megan Smolenyak, chief family historian at Ancestry.com, who has been studying the candidates’ genealogy.

Ounce for ounce, Joe Biden’s blood is probably the most green, Smolenyak says. His large Roman Catholic brood certainly fits the label. And the loquacious senator from Delaware has certainly been known to deliver the blarney.

At the top of the ticket, Barack Obama-(O’Bama, maybe?) has at least one Irish ancestor, according to genealogists. At age 19, Obama’s great-great-great grandfather, Fulmuth Kearney, left Ireland in 1849 for America. And in a remarkable coincidence, Obama’s and Biden’s Irish ancestors arrived in the States within five weeks of each other, Smolenyak says. Both were shoemakers-and if the oratorical skills of their descendents is any guide, were presumably good salesmen as well.

On the GOP side, John McCain’s family has long claimed Scottish origin. There’s some debate about that, but Ancestry.com has found pretty definitive Irish roots. Senator McCain’s ancestor Alexander McKean, immigrated from Northern Ireland in the early 1700s, according to Smolenyak. It’s quite possible that the GOP candidate is of both Scottish and Irish origin.

Sarah Palin’s family tree also has a strong Irish branch. Her mother’s maiden name is Sheeran and her great-grandfather was born in Minnesota in 1876 to a first generation Irish-American couple.

America has long been fertile ground for refugees from the Emerald Isle. There are 40 million or so Americans who claim Irish heritage today, while Ireland itself has only 4 million people. Only German ancestry is reported by a larger group of Americans, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Past American presidents who claimed a touch of Irish include Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and, of course, John F. Kennedy.

“Historically, oppressed people in America have sought the political system, and the Irish 100 years ago very much were an oppressed people,” says Jeffrey D. Cleary, executive director of the Irish American Republicans. That legacy led many Irish Americans to pursue politics, traditionally as a solid Democratic Party bloc. But that party loyalty fragmented as the group assimilated into society.

Still, politicians actively court Gaelic Americans. Just try watching a St. Patrick’s Day parade without seeing a politician amid the floats and marching bands. Hillary Clinton sported a shamrock scarf during the primaries, and McCain lobbied the community at a Pennsylvania campaign stop last month, when he pointed out that Irish-Americans are one of the few groups that it’s still safe to make jokes about-before launching into his own joke, which I’ll paraphrase here:

Two men sitting at a bar struck up a conversation and began to buy drinks for each other. As the evening progressed, the conversation got louder and more animated. One man asked his drinking buddy: “Where did you go to school?”

“St. Mary’s,” the second man replied.

“St. Mary’s?!  I went to St. Mary’s too.”

And on it went, with much backslapping, more drinks and wobbly bar stools.

Finally, another bar patron watching the growing commotion asked the bartender: “What’s going on down there?”

The bartender replied: “That’s just the O’Reilly twins getting drunk again.”

In spite of (or perhaps because of) the joke, Chris Longley, a businessman from St. Paul, Minn., plans to vote for McCain next month, but professes an admiration for the Democratic candidate. Obama’s heritage shows the “strength of the Irish gene in America,” Longley says. “You can be 10 percent Irish and it’s the strongest gene that you have and it overtakes all the rest of your genetic makeup. If Obama’s 5 percent Irish, in my mind, he’s 100 percent Irish.”