White House chief of staff Bill Daley talks about President Obama’s Irish roots in an interview with Susan Falvella Garraty of the Irish Echo
Excerpts:
Daley said upfront that Barack Hussein Obama is not exactly the prototype Irish-American trampling through birth certificate records in the parish church to find his long lost relatives.
“It’s a different model than the Irish are used to – being primarily African American and mixed blood, but the heritage passed through his grandfather is something he’s curious about,” said Daley in his office in the West Wing.
Bill Daley is himself a scion of a storied Irish-American family steeped in Chicago politics. His father, the late Richard Daley, was the grandson of Irish immigrants from County Waterford and was Chicago’s mayor from 1955 to 1976. Bill Daley’s brother, also named Richard, also became mayor and just stepped down this week after governing the city, also for 20 years.
