Posted on 02/08/2002 8:40:16 AM PST by aculeus
A SEARCH by genealogists has confirmed the unlikely Irish heritage of boxing legend Muhammed Ali.
Staff at the Clare Heritage Centre at Corofin have discovered that the three-times world boxing champion's great grandfather was Abe Grady who was born in the town Ennis in the 1840s.
According to genealogist Antoinette O'Brien, Abe - who hailed from the Turnpike area of Ennis - emigrated to the US in the 1860s from Cappa Harbour, near Kilrush in west Clare.
Some time after arriving in the US, Abe Grady settled in Kentucky, where he married an African-American woman. It is understood that their son also married an African-American woman and one of their daughters was Ali's mother, Odessa Lee Grady.
In the 1930s, Odessa married Cassius Clay Snr and they settled in Louisville, Kentucky before their son Cassius Clay Jnr was born in 1942.
The Heritage Centre carried out the research as part of a programme on Ali's Irish links for TG4.
© Irish Independent
No one who gets in the ring is a coward.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.