Did You Know These Celebrities Are Irish?…

Barack Obama discovered during his 2007 presidential campaign that he had Irish ancestry. His great-great-grandfather, Falmouth Kearney, emigrated from Ireland to the United States in the 1850s.  Obama later visited Kearney’s hometown of Moneygall in 2011, famously enjoying a pint of Guinness and joking to locals, “My name is Barack Obama, of the Moneygall Obamas, and I’ve come home.” Despite often being linked to his Italian-American background, Robert De Niro actually has strong Irish roots. Three of his grandparents were of Irish descent, including his paternal grandmother Helen O’Reilly. The actor even explored that side of his heritage when he portrayed real-life mob figure Frank Sheeran in the 2019 film ‘The Irishman.’ Actress and filmmaker Olivia Wilde also has deep Irish ties and even holds an Irish passport. Her grandfather was the Irish novelist Claud Cockburn, and she later studied acting at Dublin’s Gaiety School of Acting. Her stage name was even inspired by the famous Irish writer Oscar Wilde.