DUBLIN, Aug 29: Both US presidential hopeful Barack Obama and running mate Joseph Biden are descended from shoemakers who emigrated from Ireland within five weeks of each other, a researcher said on Friday.

US genealogist Megan Smolenyak Smolenyak said the two politicians’ ancestors set off for the United States in April and May 1849, joining up to 1.5 million other Irish who fled their island’s devastating 1845-49 potato famine.

Last year, Smolenyak Smolenyak, who lives in New Jersey, traced Obama’s maternal Kearney family roots to Moneygall in County Offaly.

Now she believes that Biden’s great-great-grandfather, Owen Finnegan, most likely emigrated from Carlingford in County Louth, which borders on Northern Ireland.

“In the case of both Biden and Obama’s family, what’s interesting is that the gentlemen in the family left in 1849 and then their families followed in 1850,” Smolenyak Smolenyak told RTE public radio.

“What is even more peculiar is that both of the progenitors were shoemakers.” About 34 million Americans claim an Irish connection.—AFP