Obama in Ireland
Tuesday, 24 May 2011
DUBLIN, May 23 (AFP): US President Barack Obama arrived in windswept Dublin Monday for a highly personal stop in Ireland at the start of a four-nation European tour.
Obama's visit will also take him on a state visit to Britain, the G8 summit in France and Poland.
In Ireland he will address crowds in Dublin and then travel to the tiny village of Moneygall in rural County Offaly, from where his great-great-great grandfather Falmouth Kearney on his mother's side emigrated more than 160 years ago.
Kearney was the 19-year-old son of a shoemaker who arrived in New York in 1850 in search of a better life.
Obama and his wife Michelle arrived on a blustery morning, with the wind whipping across rainsoaked Dublin Airport as he was greeted by officials on the apron.