After national media speculation that US President Barack Obama might visit Ireland next year County Council chairman Michael O’Brien pledged to nurture the extraordinary influence which this small country has in America.
Cllr O’Brien said the US Ambassador in Ireland, Daniel M Rooney’s visit to Kilkenny last November was an attempt by the council to highlight the achievements of James Hoban, one of Kilkenny’s greatest emigrants and the White House Designer, from Desart, Callan.
The Hoban Memorial at Desart was completed by the Architecture Faculty of the Catholic University of America in 2008 with support from Kilkenny County Council. A Hoban Exhibition was featured in County Hall and MacDonagh Junction during Arts Week in 2009 with assistance from the White House Historical Society.
“We have no way of knowing if the speculation is qualified or not, but we were recently advised by our American friends in the Charleston Hoban Society that his visit is unlikely until 2012,” said Cllr O’Brien.
Cllr O’Brien, an emigrant to the UK for a number of years, said that because of his own experiences he empathised with Hoban and with Ireland’s widespread diaspora. Previously as chairman he was involved in keeping up fraternal contacts with Kilkenny Associations in London, Manchester, and Birmingham on behalf of their relatives and friends here.
“Kilkenny County Council will continue to monitor this issue with the US Embassy and it will also seek to give expression to my own informal request last November to His Excellency Ambassador Rooney, for a Kilkenny slot in President Obama’s itinerary because of the Hoban connection and because of the direct Obama family connection rece
