LONDON, Feb 8: The boxing legend, Muhammad Ali, 60, had an Irish great-grandfather, a genealogist was reported as saying on Friday.

An Irishman, Abe Grady, from Ennis in County Clare, emigrated to the United States in the 1860s and married an African-American in Kentucky. Their son also married an African-American, and the couple’s daughter, Odessa Lee Grady, was Ali’s mother, according to genealogist Antoinette O’Brien.

“There is no doubt that Abe Grady was Ali’s great-grandfather,” the British news agency, the Press Association, quoted O’Brien as saying.

“I am not sure whether Ali knows about this - we have not yet managed to contact him,” she added. O’Brien said researchers at County Clare Heritage Centre had found documentation linking to Abe Grady.—dpa