FOREIGN MEDIA:US PRESIDENT Barack Obama's visit to Ireland will make headlines across the world, with journalists from more than 20 countries accredited to cover the presidential trip.
According to the Department of Foreign Affairs, some 870 media personnel have been accredited to report on the visit.
That number includes 576 journalists from Irish media outlets and more than 150 from US news organisations.
Of the latter, 140 will be drawn from the White House press corps. Some 130 British journalists have been accredited.
The remainder are from Europe, Asia, Latin America, Canada and Australia.
Among the media organisations covering the visit are the BBC, Sky News, CNN, Al-Jazeera, Chinese state news agency Xinhua, Russian state news agency ITAR-TASS, Fuji TV from Japan, and Brazilian channel Terra TV.
Major newspapers and TV channels in France, Germany, Spain and Italy are sending reporters to Ireland.
The White House press corps plane left Andrews air base in Maryland yesterday, 15 hours ahead of Air Force One, to give reporters a chance to file preview reports ahead of Mr Obama’s arrival.
A number of US journalists, including MSNBC chief Washington correspondent Norah O’Donnell and New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd, have been in Ireland since last week reporting on preparations for the visit.
In a column published on Saturday, Dowd described Moneygall, where the US president will visit the former home of his ancestor Fulmouth Kearney, as “[an] Obama Potemkin village”.
She wrote: “This blocklong village (population 298) in Co Offaly has erupted in a paroxysm of partying and marketing. Not since Jay Gatsby has there been such a frenzy of self-invention.
“The newspaper, the Offaly Independent, has for now changed its name to the Obama Independent.
“A group of female hoofers have rechristened themselves the Obama Stepdancers,” Dowd wrote.