The small Irish village of Moneygall is located in County Offaly – but very close to the border with Tipperary . The nearest big towns are Roscrea to the North East and Nenagh to the South East . The local GAA club play in the Tipperary league.
Moneygall is on the the N7 Dublin-Limerick road which was recently bypassed by the M7
Apparently – USA President Barack Obama’s great-great-great grandfather came from Moneygall.
Records found by historians show that his maternal ancestors lived and worked in the Moneygall area more than 160 years ago and worshipped at Templeharry church, four miles from the village. President Obama’s late mother Ann Dunham was a descendant of Fulmouth Kearney, who was Obama’s third great-grandfather, and who left the village for New York in 1850 to eventually settle in Ohio.
It was announced on St Patricks day 2011 that Obama will visit Ireland in May 2011 – he said he will visit Moneygall where the house his ancestors lived in still stands.
This Book – has some more information about Obama’s Irish roots.
This book tells the story of the Irish roots of President Obama and reveals the hidden history of the Protestant Irish who opened up the frontier west of the Appalachians.
. We learn the story of the Kearney family, of the Ireland they came from and the state of their home village in the dreadful famine years. We learn, too, of how two young people met in 1960 and married and had a child: Ann Dunham, a direct descendant of Joseph Kearney, and Barack Obama, Sr., a Kenyan exchange student.