U.S. PRESIDENTS

Ireland in the White House: U.S. Presidents of Irish Heritage

For a people whose Old World forebears had typically lived in humble huts or cottages, Irish-Americans have made it in surprising numbers to the most prestigious address in America. Even for so-called Scots-Irish and other Protestant immigrants who furnished most of the earlier Irish settlers and most of our presidents of Irish heritage, a move into the White House usually marked an almost incredible advance beyond the circumstances of their fathers, or their fathers before them. In all, from John Adams to Ronald Reagan, no fewer than 17 Presidents of the United States have traced all or part of their ancestry to Ireland. Three were sons of immigrants.

Indeed, the very architect of the White House was an Irish-Catholic immigrant. James Hoban (1758-1831, a native of Kilkenny who had settled in Charleston, South Carolina, was chosen for the assignment in competition with a large number of other architects. In planning the home of America's First Families, Hoban is said to have been strongly influenced by the design of Dublin's Leinster House, which serves today as the meeting place for Ireland's parliament.

The roster of U.S. presidents of Irish heritage reads as follows:

1. John Adams -- His mother, Susanna Boylston Adams, was reportedly descended from a family that had been farmers in Ulster for generations. The family name is thought originally to have been Boyle, embellished to Boylston, as was not uncommonly done.

2. James Monroe -- Monroe's Irish antecedents are a little had to pin down, but a direct ancestor named Monroe (or Munro) is said to have been a Scottish officer who married a local woman while serving in Ulster during the last 17th or early 18th century.

3. John Quincy Adams -- As the son of John Adams, he naturally had his father's Boylston heritage.

4. Andrew Jackson -- Both parents came from the village of Boneybefore in Carrickferfus, County Antrim.

5. James K. Polk -- The family name had originally been Pollick, a common Ulster name since the Plantation. (The 'Plantation' was the 'planting' of Scottish protestants in the province of Ulster by the British in order to dilute the native Irish population.) His mother's family ws also from Ulster.

6. James Buchanan -- Both of his father's parents came from County Donegal, after having lived for a time in Larne, County Antrim. His mother's roots seem also to have been in Ulster.

7. Andrew Johnson -- His Irish ancestors came from County Antrim.

8. Ulysses S. Grant -- Grant's mother, Hannah Simpson, lived in a small farmhouse at Dergenagh, County Tyrone, before emigrating to America.

9. Chester A. Arthur -- His father, William Arthur, was born in the Dreen, Cullbackey, County Antrim, in a house that still stands. His mother was reportedly also of Ulster ancestry.

10. Grover Cleveland -- His mother's father was a Neal (or Neill) who had immigrated from Ulster.

11. Benjamin Harrison -- Harrison had Ulster roots on his mother's side.

12. William McKinley -- His father's family had come from Dervock, County Antrim, where the name had been spelled McKinley.

13. Theodore Roosevelt -- Roosevelt's mother, Martha Bullock, came from a Scot-Irish and Huguenot family that had lived in County Antrim. His father's mother Margaret Potts Burnhill, is said to have been born in County Meath.

14. Woodrow Wilson -- Both of his paternal grandparents -- James Wilson and Annie Mills (Wilson) -- were from the Strabane area of County Antrim.

15. John Fitzgerald Kennedy -- Kennedy's ancestors all came from Ireland. His paternal great-grandfather, Patrick Kennedy, had emigrated from Dunganstown, New Ross, County Wexford to Boston, and there married Bridget Murphy, another immigrant. The paternal grandparents of Kennedy's mother -- Thomas Fitzgerald and Rose Mary Murray -- had also immigrated from County Wexford.

16. Richard M. Nixon -- Nixon numbered Irish Quakers among his forebears. His great-great-grandfather, Richard Milhous, was born at Timahoe, County Laois. While in the White House, the Nixons owned an Irish setter they named King Timahoe.

17. Ronald W. Reagan -- Reagan's paternal great-grandfather, Michael Regan, emigrated from Ballyporeen, County Timmerary, in 1829.