Posted on 01/27/2005 5:09:57 PM PST by Cornpone
DUBLIN -- U.S. President George W. Bush is descended from Norman nobleman Richard de la Clare, known as Strongbow, who led the invasion of Ireland in the 12th century, genealogists said yesterday.
Mr. Bush is also descended from the Celtic king of the Irish province of Leinster, Dermot McMurrough, who was denounced as a traitor and whose daughter Aoife married Strongbow. The Bush family is already aware that it is descended from Norman gentry who lived in England in the late Middle Ages. But Irish historian Ann Griffin Bernstorff found the Irish genealogical link by working on the Ross, one of the biggest tapestries in Europe that retraces the birth of New Ross, founded in 1207 by William Marshall, son of Strongbow.
Separated by 30 generations, Mr. Bush is a direct descendant of William Marshall, who was married to Isabelle de Clare.
"It's all very intriguing really," Ms. Griffin Bernstorff told the Irish Times.
"We had heard rumours that this was a possibility, then one of our committee members had a Republican friend in Chicago," she said. "We got the genealogy chart from there and made the link to the de Clare family. It's an ancient Irish family, one of the oldest on the island, stretching back to the mists of time."
Mr. Bush is also descended from Anne Marbury Hutchinson, an English Puritan who arrived in America in 1634 aboard the Griffin and who settled in Boston.
According to the family tree established by Anne and Alexis Bernstorff, Anne Marbury was a direct descendant of Anglo-Norman nobleman John the Strange, and before him Gilbert the Red, Gilbert de Clare, count of Gloucester and Hereford.
Gilbert the Red, who married Joan of England, daughter of King Edward I, was none other than the grandson of William Marshall, whom the Plantagenets called the finest flower of chivalry.
Sounds like good stock--except for that "John The Strange" character. Wonder how he earned that name?
Strange used to simply mean foreign, like "etranger" in French.
We probably don't want to know. Unfortunately, that probably means the Washington-Post will tell us.
"John the Strange" emmegrated to France and founded the Kerry line from whence "John Kerry the Strange, II" sprang again!
"John the Strange" emmegrated to France and founded the Kerry line from whence "John Kerry the Strange, II" sprang again!
Sounds like a Monty Python skit.
Why doesn't it surprise me that he would have an ancestor named "Strong bow".
So are they saying that he comes from a long line of illegal aliens and should cut his contemporaries some slack?
Nah, if this were Kerry's family tree he'd find some way to work the Jews in there somehow, and the Hispanics, and the Asians ...
And I'm descended from cannibals... and you don't have to dig back that far to find them.
I'm from Wexford (and live less than 20 miles from New Ross). Strongbow isn't remembered here as a character to be vilified. In fact, when we learned about him in school he was something of a romantic character. His romance with Aoife was kinda cool.
My ancestors came to Ireland as Normans from Normandy in the invasion. They weren't noblemen, though, just clerks (tho' that was a good position in those days and required education).
BTW, on the downside of the coin...JFK's ancestors hailed from New Ross too.
Actually, Kerry's paternal grandfather is Jewish. His original family name is "Kohn" not "Kerry"
Sounds like a Monty Python skit.
It has almost infinite possibilities, doesn't it?
I've heard that, but I didn't know if it was true--like so many things Kerry said.
I knew without seeing a genealogy chart that Bush ancestors were here from the beginning. It's written all over him in ways I cannot explain but can see clearly. Our president really and truly with every fiber of his being wants to defend and protect the USA and spread freedom.
I believe he possessed the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch at one time.
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