Ambassador Rooney was on a visit to Kilkenny city Wednesday, November 18, home to the tomb of Obama's long lost relative, Bishop John Kearney. He said he has asked Obama to visit Ireland.

Robert Reynolds: Since Sarah Palin once famously said she didn't know whether Africa was a continent, we in the global Irish community are left to wonder whether she could have ever unscrambled the difference between England, Britain and the so-called United Kingdom. Alas, we won't have to wait too long for Palin's wit (?) and wisdom (?!). Her new book comes out Monday.

Robert Reynolds: The resignation of Greg Craig as White House counsel is a sad day for civil liberties in America. Craig was a fearless proponent of exposing those who ordered torture of prisoners in American custody.

The undocumented Irish community in the U.S. received a major boost today with the announcement from the White House that it will push forward with a legalization program. Homeland Security boss Janet Napolitano said the Obama administration is seeking a "tough but fair pathway to earned legal status."

The Irish premiere of Kilkenny man Gabriel Murray's documentary on the Irish heritage of U.S. president Barack Obama will be screened on Sunday as part of the Waterford Film Festival.

Niall O'Dowd: Somewhere in Australia there's an Irish lad called Rowan McCormick who broke Maureen Dowd's heart. When she went back in the early 1970s to visit her homestead in County Clare, hard by the majestic Cliffs of Moher, she met him and fell madly in love.

News from the 32: Antrim, Armagh, Carlow, Cavan, Clare, Cork, Derry, Donegal, Down, Dublin, Fermanagh, Galway, Kerry, Kildare, Kilkenny, Laois, Leitrim, Limerick, Longford, Louth, Mayo, Meath, Monaghan, Offaly, Roscommon, Sligo, Tipperary, Tyrone, Waterford, Westmeath, Wexford, Wicklow

A new "White House" is planned for Ireland as part of an ambitious entertainment complex in County Tipperary. The Irish White House would form the center-piece of an $680m 800-acre development which would also include a concert venue, golf course, casino and racecourse.

If businessman Richard Quirke has his way, then Two-Mile Borris could become Ireland’s sin city with its own casino in the midst of the Irish countryside.

As my sophomore year of high school began in 1960, the country was buzzing with the coming election. An Irish American was running for president! My Irish relatives rallied to the call and even my Italian family members supported the candidate. He might be Irish but he was Catholic

NOW that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s Irish visit is over, and she most definitely acted as negotiator and envoy herself in Northern Ireland, as well as appointing economic envoy Declan Kelly, it is interesting to note who got this story right and who got it wrong in the preceding few months.

Say one thing for Irish American Chris Christie, the New Jersey Republican candidate for governor. He's no empty suit waiting to be taken to the cleaners by his opponent Jon Corzine. It's hard to be when you are 350 pounds and counting.

Undocumented Irish immigrants have been given new reason to hope that immigration reform is on President Obama's agenda. This follows a report in The New York Times that the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) agency has quietly begun preparing for an expected upsurge in its workload.

Ireland's former Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Albert Reynolds has revealed how the first official St Patrick's Day visit to the

Senator Edward Kennedy lured President Ronald Reagan into taking an interest in Northern Ireland by assuring him that he could tell some good Irish jokes when inviting him to a Tip O'Neill speakers lunch on St. Patrick's Day. At the same time Kennedy invited leading Irish government figures with the promise that they would get an opportunity to tell Reagan about Northern Ireland.

It is quite an image... Maureen Dowd, scourge of every president since Poppy Bush and, arguably, the most powerful journalist in America thanks to her must-read column in The New York Times, talking of the road not taken, living a quiet life as a barkeep's wife back in Clare. Maybe that image isn’t so fanciful, though.

THE Irish government has measured up to its recent statements about the importance of the global Irish by scheduling a high profile conference for the weekend of September 18 in Dublin. The reaction to the government invitation to its forum has been excellent, with over 180 business leaders from all corners of the globe agreeing to attend in what will surely be an historic weekend.

Niall O'Dowd: They were the Four Horsemen, the most powerful Irish lobby in American political history. They were Senator Edward Kennedy, House Speaker ‘Tip’ O’Neill Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan and New York governor Hugh Carey.

Sen. Ted Kennedy died shortly before midnight Tuesday at his home in Hyannis Port, Mass., at age 77. Kennedy had fought brain cancer, and according to his son had lived longer with the disease than his doctors expected him to.

Senator Ted Kennedy, who has represented the state of MA for almost 50 years, has sent a letter to Governor Deval L. Patrick asking for a change in the Senate vacancy succession policy for the state, further increasing concerns for his present state of health.

The signs are not good for the ailing Senator Edward Kennedy, who failed to attend the White House ceremony where he was due to receive the American Medal of Freedom and, more poignantly, his sister Eunice’s funeral last week.

There were new fears over the health of Senator Edward Kennedy today as he failed to attend the funeral of his much-loved 88-year-old sister, Eunice Kennedy Shriver in Cape Cod.

When not blazing a trail on the silver screen in flicks like "Mamma Mia," Meath man Pierce Brosnan, along with his wife Keely, is a passionate advocate for the protection of whales and sea life.

President Barack Obama today praised Mary Robinson as "a crusader for women and those without a voice in Ireland," saying she "shone a light on human suffering" during her work on human rights and hunger. Obama awarded Robinson with the Presidential Medal of Freedom at a White House ceremony today.

President John F. Kennedy's sister Eunice Kennedy Shriver, who carried on the family's public service tradition by founding the Special Olympics and championing the rights of the mentally disabled, died Tuesday morning, her family said in a statement. She was 88.

First Minister of Northern Ireland and Democratic Unionist Party leader Peter Robinson has written a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton expressing his disquiet over the California Democratic Party's adoption of a resolution to support a United Ireland.

US President Barack Obama has defended his decision to honor Ireland's former president, Mary Robinson, with a Presidential Medal of Freedom. The award for Robinson, the highest the U.S. can bestow on a civilian, has been bitterly attacked by the influential Israeli lobbying group AIPAC

A pro-Israel lobbying group blasted President Obama's decision to grant a top honor to former Irish President Mary Robinson, accusing her of bias against the Jewish state.

The surname Curran is common in all four provinces in Ireland, but especially in County Donegal and throughout Ulster. The name is also prevalent in the south of Ireland, appearing many times in the County Tipperary Hearth Money Rolls of 1665-7. Currans showed up frequently as Waterford residents in the census of 1659.

Former President of Ireland, Mary Robinson, has been named as a 2009 recipient of a U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom. This is the highest honor the

WITH VIDEOS: With mugs of beer and calm conversation, President Obama tried to get past a political uproar Thursday, hailing a "friendly, thoughtful" conversation with the black professor and Irish cop whose dispute had ignited a fierce debate over race in America.

Though he’s happily lived with his male partner for more than 12 years, Irish Voice reporter CAHIR O’DOHERTY cannot marry because marriage and immigration laws don’t jibe in the U.S., and he’s wondering when they ever will.

Three feuding Irish cousins — President Obama, Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr., and Cambridge Police Sgt. James Crowley — are planning to bury the hatchet over a pint at the White on Thursday at at 6 p.m.

When the president comes calling where better to take his call than at your favorite local Irish pub?

Her husband may be Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, but Jane Sullivan Roberts is an amazing success story all her own.

If New York Senator Charles Schumer has anything to do with it, the estimated 50,000 Irish undocumented in the U.S. will have an immigration bill to look forward to by the end of this year or early next.

In “Bobby and Jackie: A Love Story,” author C. David Heymann reveals what he argues has been an open secret among Kennedy insiders for years: the much hinted at, but never fully disclosed, romantic relationship between Jackie Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy. The New York Times bestselling author talks about the two legendary figures and the tragedy that he says brought them together.

When you think "Irish America" you think Catholicism in the U.S., JFK , St. Patrick's Day parades and Irish pride. But Irish-American ties run deeper than one might expect on first glance.

Filming is ready to begin on Steven Spielberg’s next movie, “Lincoln,” starring Ballymena-born actor Liam Neeson. In a role that’s set to be the Irish actor’s greatest to date, Neeson will play U.S. President Abraham Lincoln in the biopic opposite Sally Field, who will portray his wife, Mary Todd Lincoln.

Source close to congressman says his desire to be close to grandchildren and his divergence on policy issues swayed him stay in Congress.

Robert Pattinson is now filming “Remember Me” in New York City with Pierce Brosnan, who plays his father in the film. With two attractive, talented actors in such close proximity, we can’t help but compare the delicious looking duo.

President Obama apparently had someone else in mind before he made Pittsburgh Steelers boss Dan Rooney the U.S. Ambassador to Ireland.

Ticket sales for London’s West End production of “Les Miserables” have skyrocketed since Susan Boyle sang “I Dreamed a Dream” on “Britain’s Got Talent.”

Barack Hussein Obama is the descendant of Ohio and Indiana immigrants who came from the borders of Counties

President Obama's Irish roots: Click Here Full text of President Obama's recent speech at Notre Dame: Click here

Irish actor Pierce Brosnan caused a media storm at the White House Tuesday as he took in a tour while meeting with staff to discuss the preservation of whales.

Ireland’s latest ally in the Obama overseas tax plan controversy is an unlikely candidate: Rush Limbaugh.

When your name gets called by the president of the United States and he is discussing tax havens, then you know it’s a bad day. Such was the case for Ireland, which was one of three countries tagged by President Obama when he announced plans to force American companies to bring their overseas profits home to be taxed.

Courtney Kennedy, daughter of Robert Kennedy, is the first of the modern-day Kennedy family to become an Irish citizen. Courtney is the first Kennedy to have an Irish passport since Patrick Kennedy used his travel papers to leave Ireland in the 1840s.

Senator Charles Schumer of New York has never lacked the stomach for a fight, but this time he has picked himself a doozy.