In Ireland, A Homecoming (Of Sorts) For Obama

An eighth-cousin of Obama, Henry Healy, poses with a bust of the president in Ollie Hayes Pub.

MARY LOUISE KELLY, host: Well, President Obama will not be visiting Spain on his European trip. He will, however, pay a visit to Buckingham Palace, attend the G8 summit in France and meet with central European leaders in Poland. First, though, the president has some family business to attend to, as NPR's Scott Horsley reports.

SCOTT HORSLEY: Ireland is the first stop on this European tour, and for President Obama, it's a homecoming of sorts. The president can boast of Irish ancestry. So as Prime Minister Enda Kenny explained on St. Patrick's Day, the land of O'Connells, O'Neills, and O'Donnells is also the land of O'Bamas.

Prime Minister ENDA KENNY (Ireland): I can tell you that in the history of the English language, never has a single apostrophe meant so much to so many.

HORSLEY: Mr. Obama's personal connection to Ireland - which is actually on his mother's side - was discovered four years ago, when researchers traced his great-great-great grandfather to the village of Moneygall in County Offaly. Falmouth Kearney was a shoemaker's son who sailed to America in 1850.

Canon Stephen Neill found Kearney's family records at Templeharry Church, just outside Moneygall. He's been fielding questions about Falmouth's most famous descendent ever since.

Canon STEPHEN NEILL (Templeharry Church): It's good fun, but it's pretty tiring.

HORSLEY: Two months ago, on St. Patrick's Day, Mr. Obama announced his plans to visit Moneygall during this European trip. Neill says the village of 296 people has been tidying up in anticipation ever since.

Canon NEILL: The whole town has been painted from one end of the village to the other. A local - well, I say local - a national paint company provided paint for the entire village. And that really created a great community spirit, because everybody was out simultaneously painting their own houses, and that was lovely. People have been putting up window boxes. There was a flag-raising done by local school children, where 50 Irish flags and 50 American flags were raised simultaneously up the street.

All-in-all, the place is looking really very, very well, and I'm sure the president will be very impressed when he comes.

HORSLEY: Irish old-timers can recall when President Reagan paid a visit to his family's village, Ballyporeen, and the temporary lift that gave the town. Neill says many in Moneygall would welcome a similar moment in the spotlight.

Canon NEILL: It's given people something positive to think about. Like yourselves, we've been living through particularly dire economic circumstances, and it's given people, I think, confidence in themselves. And that positivity will - is already reaping rewards in terms of business and tourism. I hope, certainly, in the future, that that will continue to be the case.

HORSLEY: Ireland's recession was deeper than our own, and the Irish economy is only just now beginning to grow again. The country's also had to swallow tough austerity（经纪紧缩，严格限制消费） measures in exchange for a European bailout. But the Irish ambassador to the U.S., Michael Collins, insists his country will rebound.

Ambassador MICHAEL COLLINS (Irish Ambassador to the United States): We're very much open for business. Ireland is a country which either - whose business relationship with the United States is of vital importance to us, and the president's visit gives us a real boost and a real opportunity to promote that.

HORSLEY: From Ireland, Mr. Obama travels to the U.K., France and Poland. And at every stop, he'll be stressing the important role he wants Europe to play in world affairs, whether battling the Taliban in Afghanistan or fostering democracy in Egypt and Tunisia.

European leaders have sometimes felt neglected by the Obama administration, which has spent much of its diplomatic energy in Asia and the developing world. Heather Conley, who directs the Europe Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, says this trip is a chance for Mr. Obama to make amends.

Ms. HEATHER CONLEY (Director, Europe Program, Center for Strategic and International Studies): The irrational exuberance of Europe when President Obama was inaugurated has now met, two-and-a-half years later, with a daunting list of domestic challenges, international challenges. And we have to understand how this relationship is going to work within that complexity.

HORSLEY: Many of those tough questions can wait, though, until later in the week. Today, Mr. Obama's focus is Ireland. He's giving an outdoor speech in Dublin tonight, alongside the Irish music group Snow Patrol. Aides say Mr. Obama will be celebrating the unique ties between the U.S. and Ireland, fostered in part by 35 million Irish-Americans, one of whom lives in the White House.

Scott Horsley, NPR News, traveling with the president.

KELLY: This is MORNING EDITION, from NPR News.