Unlikely though it may seem at first glance, Barack Obama has apparently achieved that aim of most recent US Presidents and found himself an Irish forebear. One of his great-great-great grandfathers supposedly came from the village of Moneygall in County Offaly and Obama will undoubtedly squeeze every ounce of electoral benefit out of this fact.
To put a little perspective on this, we each have 32 great-great-great grandparents so Obama can claim to be about 3% Irish, though the way that heredity works, it could actually be significantly more, or less, than this. However much Irish ancestry he has, it is a strange fact of history that the Irish seem to have infiltrated every part of the world and there are far more people who claim Irish ancestry abroad than there have ever been Irish in Ireland.
For my own 'piece of the Blarney', I can outdo the President by some distance. While my mother's family were from continental Europe, my father's had large chunks of Irish in it with the probability being that I have 10 Irish great-great-great grandparents, though not having the resources of a President, it may be hard to prove. Fortunately, as I see it, my ancestors were from Limerick and Cork, so there's not much chance that I share any traceable links with the President though his researchers are welcome to look for one if they like.
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