The president and the first lady raise their glasses in Moneygall, Ireland, Monday. | REUTERS Making Irish eyes smile

DUBLIN, Ireland — President Barack Obama squeezed every ounce of advantage that he could out of his distant Irish roots Monday, rolling through the country as the main attraction of a daylong pep rally.

Obama gave Ireland a fawning embrace — an enthusiastic, over-the-top homage that departed from his usual reserved demeanor.


He drank a pint of Guinness with an eighth cousin. He accepted kisses from Irish women, bear hugs from Irish men and a hurling stick from the Irish prime minister. He told stories about his political career in Chicago, “the Irish capital of the Midwest.” He even spoke Gaelic, telling a crowd of 25,000 in Dublin that he was so very happy to be in Ireland, his newfound ancestral homeland.

“I’ve come home to find the apostrophe that we lost somewhere along the way,” Obama said at a rally at Dublin’s College Green, the crowd roaring with approval.

Amid the revelry, Obama’s attention was diverted to more serious matters, including a tragedy at home. He monitored the destructive tornado that tore through Missouri, calling Gov. Jay Nixon to offer federal support upon landing in Dublin.

Then, a plume of volcanic ash moving toward the United Kingdom forced Obama to leave Ireland early for London. He departed late Monday night.

Officially, he had planned a full day of his coveted time in Ireland to, as he said, “reaffirm those bonds of affection” with the United States.

Unofficially, his trip here was about so much more.

Obama joined a long line of American presidents — including John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush — who made the same pilgrimage, well aware of how such a visit can play big in the states, where millions of Irish Americans live and form a key, but increasingly skeptical, pillar of the Democratic base.

For a president who has been dogged by questions about his citizenship and patriotism, the trip gave Obama another chance to telegraph to white ethnic voters that he may have more in common with them than they realize.

And on a personal note, the president appeared downright tickled by the entire day, embracing the theatrical, back-slapping side of politics in a way that doesn’t always come naturally to him.

Obama lingered longer than normal at the rope lines. His enthusiasm was particularly evident in Moneygall, a tiny village in the Irish countryside, where he worked the entire length of the metal barriers — about a quarter of a mile long — sometimes in pouring rain. He served up more punch lines, with greater zeal, than usual, including making light of questions about whether he was really born in Hawaii.

“It turns out people take a lot of interest in you when you’re running for president,” Obama said at the Dublin rally to laughter. “They check out your place of birth. Things like that. Now I do wish somebody had provided me all this evidence earlier because it would have come in handy back when I was running in my hometown of Chicago.”

He poked fun at Congress, engaged in less entertaining tasks back home, such as negotiating a budget compromise to avert a potential government default in August.

“If members of Congress aren’t behaving, give ’em a little paddle, a little hurl,” Obama said at a meeting with Prime Minister Enda Kenny, who had presented him with a hurling stick, similar to a field hockey stick.

The highlight for the president — and this country of about 4 million — was his visit to Moneygall. Obama’s great-great-great-grandfather, Falmouth Kearney, lived there until 1850, when he set off for America — a classic immigrant tale that the president relayed with great flourish at the Dublin rally.

“It’s who we are, a nation of immigrants all around the world,” Obama said. “But standing there in Moneygall, I couldn’t help but think how heartbreaking it must have been for that great-great-great-grandfather of mine, and so many others, to part. To watch Donegal coasts and Dingle cliffs recede. To leave behind all they knew in hopes that something better lay on the horizon.”

Thousands of people waited through the rain, hail and heavy winds to greet Obama in Moneygall, which looked like a postcard after the townspeople spent weeks sweeping, painting and tidying the place. Stone buildings lined the commercial spine, a stretch of businesses and homes with flower planters in the windows and American and Irish flags out front.

“He held my hand, he pulled me towards him and kissed my cheek,” gushed Anne Maher, 50, a teacher who met Obama. “I’m not gonna wash that cheek for a lifetime, and my husband isn’t getting near it, either.”

Obama saw the home where Kearney once lived and records from the parish recording Kearney’s birth. At one of the town’s two pubs, Obama met his distant cousin Henry Healy, whom the president nicknamed “Henry VIII,” discussed the finer points of pouring a good pint of Guinness and told one man that he resembled Obama’s grandfather.

The bar, Ollie Hayes, was something of a shrine to Obama. A bust of the president sat on the wooden bar top. Campaign posters from 2008, including one with Vice President Joe Biden, decorated the walls. Inside a picture frame was a T-shirt with a cartoon image of Obama emblazoned with the words,”O’Bama’s Irish Pub.”

“What a thrill it is to be here,” Obama said.