Moneygall (Irish: Muine Gall, meaning 'foreigners' thicket')[3] is a village on the border of counties Offaly and Tipperary, in Ireland. It is situated on the R445 road between Dublin and Limerick. There were 313 people living in the village as of the 2016 census.[2] Moneygall has a Catholic church, motorway service station, a car sales and repair centre, a national school, a Garda station and two pubs.[4] The nearest Church of Ireland church, Borrisnafarney, is 2 km from the village beside the former Loughton Demesne.[5][6]
The village received international attention for being the ancestral home of Falmouth Kearney, a maternal great-great-great-grandfather of Barack Obama. Obama visited the village in 2011.
Moneygall is in the Dáil constituency of Laois Offaly (Dáil constituency). It was in the former constituency of Offaly and was one term in the Tipperary North Dáil constituency.[7]
Transport
The R445 Limerick to Dublin road passes through Moneygall
Moneygall is on the R445regional road and close to the M7 motorway where Junction 23 provides access to the village.
There is one Catholicnational school in the village. The former Church of Ireland school (now used as a parish hall) was built in 1888 beside the R490Borrisokane turn-off, and closed in 1976, when its pupils were transferred to the neighbouring village of Cloughjordan. An earlier building,[13] constructed around 1800, was previously used as a school. It was then used by the local Church of Ireland community as a chapel of ease until the late 1970s. It has now been converted to a private residence.
Moneygall FC opened its new grounds in 2017 in the centre of the village. The club, while based in Offaly, compete in North Tipperary.[citation needed]
Demographics
As of the 2016 census, there were 313 people living in Moneygall.[2] The previous 2011 census counted 310 people in the village (153 males and 157 females). This, in turn, was an increase of 12 people (4%) since the census of 2006.[14]
Connection with Barack Obama
Falmouth Kearney, a maternal great-great-great-grandfather of Barack Obama, 44th President of the United States, emigrated from Moneygall to New York City at the age of 19 in 1850 and eventually resettled in Tipton County, Indiana.[15] Kearney's father, Joseph, had been the village shoemaker. The Kearney family emigrated to Ross County, Ohio, in the first half of the 19th century. Falmouth Kearney's youngest daughter, Mary Ann, moved from Indiana to Kansas after her father's death in 1878. Mary Ann Kearney was a paternal grandmother of Stanley Dunham, President Obama's maternal grandfather.
On 23 May 2011, Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama, visited Moneygall as part of a visit to Ireland.[16] They were welcomed by 5,000 people and greeted upon arrival by the President's eighth cousin, Henry Healy.[17] Following a walkabout on the main street, where they shook hands with many local residents, the Obamas entered a house that had been built on the site where Falmouth Kearney had lived. Afterwards, they visited Ollie Hayes's pub to meet more of the President's distant relatives and to study the birth records of his ancestors. President and Mrs. Obama drank Irish stout to the traditional toast, sláinte (meaning "good health"), and Mrs. Obama went behind the bar to learn how to pull a pint.[18][19][20]
