November 11, 2008	Tuesday	Ziqa'ad 12, 1429

DUBLIN, Nov 10: A song trumpeting US president-elect Barack Obama’s ancestral Irish roots has become a surprise hit on the YouTube video-sharing website.

“There’s no-one as Irish as Barack Obama,” has had over 600,000 hits on YouTube, many added since the Democrat became the first black candidate to be voted US president last week.

The song, which creatively rhymes “Obama” with “O’Hara,” is the work of Irish band Hardy Drew and the Nancy Boys from Limerick in southwest Ireland who describe themselves as “a rag taggle bunch of dropouts and misfits.”

They played at an election night gig in a pub in Moneygall, a small town in central Ireland fom where a local clergyman, citing official records, says Obama’s ancestor Fulmuth Kearney emigrated in 1850.

The band say they have been invited to Washington DC by Irish American Democrats to play at an inauguration party on Jan 19.

If Obama’s Irish roots are confirmed, he will be following in the footsteps of other presidents with an Irish heritage like Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan and John Kennedy.—AFP