Directory of Irish Genealogy
Back to HomepageAmerican Presidents with Irish Ancestors
We received some time ago a generous present of Gary Boyd Roberts's authoritative study, Ancestors of American Presidents, published in Santa Clarita, California, in 1995. Roberts has compiled his book by drawing together the work of a large number of individuals and groups, and the research of his co-workers in the New England Historic Genealogical Society in Boston is particularly in evidence. The core of the book is a series of ancestor tables of the 41 Presidents from Washington to Clinton, which tables number each incumbent 1, his parents 2 and 3, his grandparents 4-7, his great-grandparents 8-15, and so on. Also included are lists of printed sources by President, sections on royal and Mayflower descents and kinships among Presidents, as well as exhaustive indexes by place and name. Roberts's work is impressive, and it supersedes and sometimes corrects a previous standard work, Burke's Presidential Families of the United States of America (1976 and 1981 Editions).
Roberts's book also of course provides much grist to the mill of one of our national obsessions - spotting Presidents of the United States of America who possessed Irish ancestry. These Irish-American chief executives of the great republic are rightly seen as a barometer of the growing success and rising influence of their ethnic group, and their visits to the old country are always important, not to say triumphal occasions. Yet despite America's reputation as the great melting pot, it is salutary to be reminded of the fact that most Presidents have been of primarily White Anglo-Saxon Protestant ancestry, and there is a predominance of what Roberts calls the 'New England family'. Nevertheless, the rise of Irish-Americans is underscored by the progressive increase in the number of Presidents with Irish ancestry, latterly including even those of Catholic stock. Thus while only 8 out of 28 Presidents from the institution of the office in 1789 until 1921 possessed elements of Irish ancestry, since Kennedy took office in 1961 every President bar one, Gerald Ford, has had some Irish blood. Of course, ongoing research may yet identify additional Presidents with Irish ancestors, it being claimed for example that one of Lincoln's great-great-great-great grandmothers was born in Ireland, but this requires further checking.
As President Clinton's term comes to a close, we must reflect again on the fact that the file on his Irish ancestry remains open, in that claims that his maternal Cassidy ancestors came from Roslea, County Fermanagh, have been shown to be baseless. As a matter of fact, there is little or no competent published work on the Irish ancestry of American Presidents from Irish genealogists, a glaring and indeed symptomatic omission. When we approached the Irish Genealogical Office for information on Clinton, it responded by stating that it does not possess a current research file on this President's ancestry. Reflecting the confusion first sown by an infamous June 1984 Magill article and having no authoritative Irish source to guide him, Roberts cites the surname in the 1829 Ballyporeen baptism entry for President Reagan's great-grandfather Michael as possibly being Ryan, whereas we are satisfied that it is in fact Regan. It is ironic that the reasonably competent research into Reagan's Irish ancestry has been widely disbelieved, whereas the utterly incompetent research into Clinton's ancestry was widely accepted.
Attention is currently concentrated on the leading contenders to succeed Clinton, George Bush Junior and Al Gore, and it is to be hoped that the waters will not be muddied again by clan fantasies or localistic wishful thinking. We are reasonably well informed concerning the Irish elements of Bush's ancestry as a result of the research performed in relation to his father, President George Bush. One of George W Bush's great-great-great-great-great grandfathers was William Holliday, born about 1755 in Rathfriland, Co Down, while a great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandfather, William Shannon, was born about 1730 in Co Cork, exact place unknown. Reports that Al Gore is of Irish descent through his main paternal line appear to be unfounded, and originated with his self-proclaimed 'cousin' Gore Vidal. Vice-President Gore's earliest traced ancestor appears to be John Gore of Middlesex County, Virginia, who died in 1726 and who may have been an immigrant from England. However, Gore's pedigree does contain some distinctively Irish names: a great-grandmother was Claudia McNeill, born about 1856, and a great-great-great-great-great-great grandmother was Mary Kelly, born about 1749. Research to develop these possible Irish links is continuing.
There follows now a listing of the 15 Presidents with definite Irish ancestry, and of course we would be glad to receive communications correcting or extending our information.
1 Andrew Jackson, 7th President 1829-37
2 James Knox Polk, 11th President 1845-49
3 James Buchanan, 15th President 1857-61
4 Ulysses S Grant, 18th President 1869-77
5 Chester Alan Arthur, 21st President 1881-85
6 Grover Cleveland, 22nd and 24th President 1885-89, 1893-97
7 William McKinley, 25th President 1897-1901
8 Woodrow Wilson, 28th President 1913-21
9 John Fitzgerald Kennedy, 35th President 1961-63
10 Lyndon Baines Johnson, 36th President 1963-69
11 Richard Milhous Nixon, 37th President 1969-74
12 James Earl Carter, 39th President 1977-81
13 Ronald Wilson Reagan, 40th President 1981-89
14 George Herbert Walker Bush, 41st President 1989-93
15 William Jefferson Clinton, 42nd President 1993-2001