Barack Obama's new Irish roots

Date: 9th August 2008

Barack Obama's Irish roots now seem to have been strengthened, after genealogists discovered that a distant ancestor was a Dublin wigmaker.

They now believe the US presidential hopeful is descended from a Dublin businessman in the 1700's.

Researchers at Trinity College, Dublin, looked further into the would-be-president's past to find his sixth great-granduncle was a prominent Dublin businessman in the seventeenth century.

Wig-maker Michael Kearney brushed shoulders with Ireland's aristocracy on a daily basis and bought and sold property throughout the city and parts of the country.

Research director with the Trinity company heritage group said she was amazed by the discovery.

"I didn't expect this, when we started off we had Joseph Kearney, shoemaker, that sounded like a country shopkeeper. We were surprised to find any link to Dublin at all"

"He made his money from periwigs , but then he invested all the profits from that in a lot of property.

His wig company, regarded as an exclusive and profitable trade at the time, was located just metres from Dublin Castle - the then seat of British power in Ireland.

In the 18th century wigs were worn by the aristocracy, professionals and gentry so Kearney would have been mixing with the elite of the Irish capital on a daily basis.

His business dealings also gave him the opportunity to become a Freeman of Dublin in 1718 and he ended up being very active in the politics of his trade guild.

Obama, a married father of two daughters, was born in Hawaii in 1961, to Kenyan Barack Obama Senior and Ann Dunham, from Kansas.

He graduated from Columbia University in 1983 and moved to Chicago in 1985 before studying at Harvard Law School where he was the first African American president of the Harvard Law Review.

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