I don’t care what people say. I like what the man says. He makes sense and it is only a bonus that it comes out of his mouth sounding like poetry.

For years, I’ve heard that there was prejudice against his kind. That they arrived in Boston in the 1840s and were despised by the native Protestants. But they persevered and stood up and accomplished great things.

Only 50 years ago, another Irish-American, Jack Kennedy, began his run for the White House. They said he couldn’t be elected. He was too young, too articulate, too soft, too good-looking. But he kept on fighting, and making people laugh and believing in themselves and their country.

Now I hear the same strange notions floating around about O’Bama. His Irish ancestry only accounts for one half of his heritage, but to hear the worried voices, many think he would make Catholicism the official religion of the US and move the US capital from Washington to South Boston.

I hear vile and thinly disguised bigotry when they say “O’Bama”. Why must they repeat it over and over again, as if conjuring up long buried notions of drunks, Friday fish dinners and poor peasants? Isn’t the name “McCain” as Irish as “O’Bama”? Why then is one candidate considered “Irish” and the other merely “American”?

O’Bama has the wit of Ireland floating off his tongue. His barbs are as sharp as Wilde, his utterances as deep as Joyce, his political sentiments as heartfelt as Yeats.

He brings his deep Christian faith to the table, but it is not heavy or full of recriminations. It sings, like a Celtic poem…….”Change” “Yes we can” “From North to South, from East to West….”

O’Bama, when you speak, you bring alive the long dead spirits of the Emerald Island and your hopes refresh the stale dreams of a tired nation.

Let us close with this excerpt from “The Harp of Cnoc l’Chosgair”:

Sweet tender flowers, brown harp of Diarmaid,
shape not unloved by hosts, voice of cuckoos in May!
I have not heard music ever such as your frame makes
since the time of the Fairy People,
fair brown many coloured bough,
gentle, powerful, glorious.
– Gofraidh Fion O Dalaigh. 1385