Irish Band Hardy Drew and the Nancy Boys have an internet hit on “YouTube” in the works with their song celebrating Barack Obama’s Irish ancestry, “There’s No One as Irish As Barack O’Bama”. The band from Limerick, Ireland, made up of brothers Ger, Brian, and Donnacha Corrigan wrote the song after learning about a study last year that revealed Barack Obama roots to Moneygall, a small town in County Offaly. “We have been messing around for the last year or two as a band” said Ger Corrigan who described the band as “specializing in parody songs.” “We wrote the song about Obama because we heard he was from Moneygall, and we were really just doing it for a bit of fun.” The bands initial offering of the “Obama song” went without fanfare.”We put the song on Youtube in March and by the end ofApril it had only 25 hits” said Ger Corrigan. But that has all changed since the worldwide media have picked up on the “bit of fun” of the song and story. Now newspapers, TV, websites and bloggers from all over the world are covering the story.Irish media has also been joining in on the fun. At the end of June Hardy Drew and The Nancy boys headlined the “Obama Nomination Celebrartion Gig” in Obama”s “hometown” in Moneygall Ireland. This was carried live on the Irish National News TV3. A documentary maker following the bands story and recorded the celebration gig for posterity.The facts behind the fun come from recent findings uncovered by Canon Stephen Neill, a Church of Ireland rector in Moneygall, who found that the Hawaiian-born Illinois senator’s Irish Anglican ancestors hailed from the village, many of whom emigrated to America at the time of Ireland’s potato famine in the 1840s. Baptismal and marriage records has traced Mr Obama’s maternal family tree back to his great-great-great-great grandfather Joseph Kearney, a well-to-do shoemaker from Moneygall, Co Offaly, who lived from 1794 to 1861.Mr. Obama ,son of a Kenyan man and a woman from Kansas, recently spoke with Irish televison RTE in regards to his Irish roots. He said in jest, “I”ve always maintained that Obama is and Irish name ” just put the apostrophe after the O and your all set.”There is no word yet if the band will fly to Denver this month for the Democratic National Convention to honor the presidential candidate as the presumptive nominee of the Democratic Party in the 2008 presidential election, but “Michiganders for Obama” have invited the band to play in Michigan if Obama succeeds in the November Presidential Race.Pat McCullough August 08 Celtic Connection