Obama 'comes home' to celebrate his Irish ancestry

DUBLIN  President Obama lifted the spirits of Ireland's 4.5 million economically depressed people Monday with an inspirational message of hope reminiscent of his 2008 campaign.

In return, Obama received a worshipful reception similar to those he got throughout Europe in the early days of his administration.

He was fawned over by 25,000 people in downtown Dublin and a more intimate group in Moneygall — home to "my grandfather's grandfather," as the president put it.

The sessions proved a satisfying start to Obama's six-day, four-nation European trip, made even more of a sprint by the trajectory of a volcanic plume from Iceland that sent the president and his entourage scurrying for Great Britain ahead of schedule.

As Irish actor Brendan Gleeson put it, paraphrasing an Obama line: "Bloody sure we can!"

Gleeson's countrymen were sorely in need of a lift because of government austerity measures put in place to bring down the nation's out-of-control debt. Unemployment hovers near 15%, salaries are being slashed and pensions cut. Obama needed a lift after watching his early stratospheric poll ratings drop amid budget battles of his own with resilient Republicans in Congress.

The president did his part by reminding his Dublin audience what Ireland has provided the United States over more than two centuries — from signatures inked on founding documents to blood shed in gallant battles to sweat produced in building America.

"Never has a nation so small inspired so much in another," Obama said. "This little country that inspires the biggest things — your greatest days are still ahead."

Despite the huge crowd in Dublin — reminiscent of Obama's speeches in Berlin in 2008 and Prague in 2009 — the president's most touching moments came in tiny Moneygall, population 296, where his great-great-great grandfather Falmouth Kearney lived before fleeing the Irish famine in 1850.

Together with first lady Michelle Obama, the president kissed and hugged scores of residents before pausing at Ollie Hayes' pub for the requisite pint of Guinness. He drank about three-fourths of it and later remarked, "I feel even more at home after that pint that I had."

All day, Obama played upon his Irish roots, only discovered during his presidential campaign. His hosts helped him along. "Today, the 44th president comes home," said Irish Taoiseach, or prime minister, Enda Kenny. "He doesn't just speak the American dream. He is the American dream."

At which point the president introduced himself: "My name is Barack Obama of the Moneygall Obamas," he told the crowd that had begun gathering seven hours earlier. "And I've come home to find the apostrophe that we lost somewhere along the way."

In Moneygall, where a few thousand people waited in pounding rain, hail and wind for three hours to catch a glimpse of him, residents stood cheering — some with small children on their shoulders — beneath flapping Irish and American flags. "You look a little like my grandfather," Obama said to one apparently unrelated man.

"What a thrill it is to be here," he said. "There are millions of Irish Americans who trace their ancestry back to this beautiful island."

Those who received tickets for the Moneygall event were equally thrilled.

"I'm so nervous, I can't talk," said John Donovan, a shopkeeper, funeral director and farmer who owns Obama's ancestral home. "We have the place spick-and-span."

Later in Dublin, the president elicited similar reactions.

"He's positive. He never says we can't do something," said Carly Meredith, 16, a secondary-school student. Added her friend Jamie Murphy, also 16 and born during the Clinton administration: "He's more down-to-earth than other presidents."

The British people will be next to judge that as Obama arrives at Buckingham Palace today for a state visit.

He remains there Wednesday for meetings, a speech to Parliament and a press conference before going on to France and Poland.