Taoiseach invites Obama to visit Ireland

TAOISEACH Brian Cowen has extended an invitation to US President-elect Barack Obama to visit Ireland.

The Taoiseach spoke to Mr Obama in a pre-arranged call yesterday evening. Mr Cown took the call in the office of the Thomond Park stadium director in Limerick just before the match between Munster and the All Blacks. Mr Cowen was at Thomond Park to formally open the new stadium.

A Government spokesman said last night there was a brief discussion between the two men about Mr Obama's connections to Co Offaly and the fact that Moneygall was in Mr Cowen's constituency.

Mr Obama can trace his family to Fulmuth Kearney, his third great-grandfather, who left Moneygall, Co Offaly, for New York in 1850, to eventually settle in Ohio.

According to a statement from the Department of the Taoiseach, Mr Cowen congratulated Mr Obama on his election, and "stressed the importance the Government attaches to Ireland's relationship with the United States, and expressed his desire that the relationship would continue to flourish in the coming years". The Taoiseach said his "personal conviction" was that it "was now a mature, two-way relationship".

Mr Cowen also updated Mr Obama on yesterday's developments in Northern Ireland.