Denis McDonough, the Irish American closest to President Obama

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Denis McDonough

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He is deeply Catholic and two of his brothers are priests. Asked what being Irish in America is about he answered: “In a lot of ways, in the first instance it means being Catholic.”

McDonough’s wife, Karin, is of Swedish and Norwegian origin. “She grew up in Beverly, which is on the south side of Chicago, arguably the most Irish neighborhood in all of America.”

The McDonoughs have three children, Adeline, Liam and Teddy. Two were baptized Catholic, one an Anglican. The family attends both Catholic Mass and a Congregationalist church.

His time in Ireland has been limited to 10 days in 1991, when he was a student in Spain, and one week in 2000 when he and his wife lived in Germany. He says the president would love to visit Ireland, the president “keeps saying that he would very much like to . . . He is eager to go.”

Other key Irish Americans are also in the White House: vice-president Joe Biden is a Finnegan from Mayo on his mother’s side. Obama’s counter-terrorism adviser John Brennan’s father is from Roscommon. Samantha Power, who also works at the NSC, was born in Cork. But McDonough clearly has the president's ear.

“I provide my advice to him in private and I can tell you that there’s a lot of times when I provide advice that he ignores,” McDonough told The Irish Times. “The American people have an expectation that you will keep them safe.

“The president understands and takes that expectation very seriously. What we’re not going to do is stand up and brag about that fact. We do it every day. So we’ll just keep doing it . . . It’s the determined Irishman in me.”
 

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