President Barack Obama fans in Kilkenny are hopeful now more than ever that the first citizen of the United States will visit Kilkenny if he makes a trip to Ireland during his presidency.
Elizabeth Keyes, administrator of St Canice’s Cathedral, is alerting visitors and locals that a close ancestor of President Obama’s is entombed in St Canice’s Cathedral.
The tomb is on the floor at the back of the building and now it has a sign with a detailed description of Obama’s links to his great great great great grand-uncle, Bishop John Kearney.
Bishop Kearney was the Bishop of Ossory and also the Provost of Trinity College Dublin. He died at the Bishop’s Palace in Kilkenny in 1813. The family lineage stops here as his son died at age 68 from cholera and his grandson also died of the same disease at just five years and five months old.
The links to President Obama were made by a local historian and film maker Gabriel Murray, who found the tomb which also houses the bodies of Bishop Kearney’s son, wife, and grandson. Mr Murray is currently completing a documentary entitled Obama’s Last Tomb in which he had been concentrating on Bishop Kearney’s brother who was an important professor at Trinity College. He traced his roots back to Moneygall in Co Offaly and this is when he found links to President Obama.
Staff at St Canice’s Cathedral believe that the discovery could spark a rush in visitors to Kilkenny and St Canice’s Cathedral to view the tomb, which is open to the public.
