Afterwards, they were jubilant; high as kites. “The greatest day this village has ever had, ever will have,” said a flushed Henry Healy, 26, an eighth cousin no less, who escorted the visitors down crowded Main Street, across to the souvenir shop and into Ollie Hayes’s pub.
“I shook his hand,” exclaimed Valerie Young. “I said to him ‘You’re very welcome, Mr President,’ and I thought he was going to fly straight on past, but he looked me in the eye and he said ‘Well, thank you’. He’s a fine looking fella, you know.”
It had been worth it, Valerie said. Worth the weather, worth the six weeks of hassle, the secret service “men in black”, the Garda who since Friday had insisted even on escorting her brother Nigel to milk the cows.
He was “so warm, so genuine”, she added, the Obamas made a lovely couple, and stayed so long – the ash cloud had yet to rear its head on the itinerary – over an hour, in this tiny village no one outside County Offaly had ever heard of.
Moneygall, blink-and-you-miss-it birthplace of the great-great-great-grandfather of the 44th president of the United States, was briefly the centre of the world yesterday. At least, that’s what it felt like if you lived there. “He was so cool,” said Sam Baker, 11, on the flag-bedecked, spruced-up Main Street. “We did get a bit wet. But it was brilliant.”
Story, AP picture in The Guardian HERE
• And earlier on Tasmanian Times, see why US Presidents are so keen to be Irish HERE:
