Madam, — In the wake of the euphoria surrounding the election of Barack Obama to the presidency of the US, I sincerely hope that Irish media and public representatives will not end up with egg on their faces in rushing to claim him as "one of our own".
When he reached his teens Barack Obama became acutely aware of his African origins. He discovered, to his horror, that he was being called Barry (a name with Irish resonance ) and demanded to be called by his Kenyan name, Barack.
When, in his twenties, he gave up a lucrative post in New York to work as a community development officer in a black community in Chicago, he found there was nothing praiseworthy in the legacy that the racial policies of Mayor Richard Daley and his Irish-American friends had left behind.
When, at that time, he sometimes had to make a phone call to a stranger who was unaware of his skin colour, he would be deeply hurt upon being mistakenly greeted as "O'Bama - one of our own", instead of Obama, the Afro-American.
Finally, he himself has written that his white mother came of Anglo-Scottish stock. - Yours, etc,