Irish hamlet prepares for Obama visit

MONEYGALL, Ireland, March 25 (UPI) -- A very distant cousin of Barack Obama said the U.S. president's ties to an Irish hamlet have been a bright spot during bad times.

Obama is scheduled to visit Ireland in May. Like Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan before him, the first black president is set to pay tribute to his Irish roots, probably by having a pint in the local pub.

In Moneygall, a few U.S. tourists have already visited, The Guardian reports. The hamlet, with a population of 299, is a wide place in the old Dublin-Limerick road, about 50 miles east of Limerick.

The homestead of Obama's ancestors, or what's left of it, still can be seen. His great-great-great-grandfather, Falmouth Kearney, left Moneygall for New York in 1850.

Henry Healey is an eighth cousin of the president.

"When the primaries started in 2008 our village wasn't like the rest of Ireland," he told the Guardian. We were not talking about recession or doom and gloom. We were talking about the American presidential campaign all the way from Iowa to the White House. It was a massive boost to our morale in these dark times."