People of Moneygall eagerly anticipate Obama win

The people of Moneygall in Co Offaly are already celebrating even though it will be hours until the US presidential election …

The people of Moneygall in Co Offaly are already celebrating even though it will be hours until the US presidential election results filter through writes Ronan McGreevyin Moneygall.

Ever since diligent research by local Church of Ireland priest Stephen Neill revealed the improbable link between Barack Obama and his great-great-great grandfather Fulmouth Kearney who left Moneygall in 1850, they were preparing for an epic night, and it isn't the first one they've had this week.

Moneygall might geographically be in Offaly, but spiritually and sportingly it is in Tipperary and the junior hurlers were still celebrating the club's first ever county title which they won at the death by a point on Sunday.

The global and the parochial are gathering in Hayes' pub in the village tonight, the epicentre of the expected celebrations for an Obama win.

The cup nestled under an American flag and the walls of the pub, one of only two in the village, were plastered with Obama posters.

For many tonight's celebrations, slightly premature though they might be, were simply a continuation from the all night Sunday and all day Monday routine which follows a historic county final win.

The Hardy Drew and the Nancy Boys made an appearance singing that song There's no one as Irish as Barack O'Bama. If you haven't head it yet, you may hear nothing else for the next four years.

Among those who turned out tonight were Henry Healy who counts himself as Obama's ninth cousin and he's not the only one. Along with his brother and four sisters, he has cousins in Kilkenny, Carlow, Laois and Tipperary who are also similarly related to Obama. It will be some homecoming if the putative next President of the United States ever does get around to coming to Ireland.

Mr Healy intends to contact Taoiseach Brian Cowen tomorrow morning and ask him to invite Barack Obama to Ireland, assuming Mr Obama wins the Presidency.