IF YOU'RE Irish, come into the White House, there's a welcome there for you. It seems impossible to stand for high office in the United States without having some claim to Irish ancestry. The latest to join the emerald pantechnicon is Sarah Palin - whose roots, it is said, are in Roscommon.
In recent decades we have witnessed Kennedy, Nixon, Reagan and Clinton treading the four green fields of their forbears. The present incumbent of the White House, George W. Bush and his father, former president George Bush, have two Ulster Presbyterian families, the Gaults and the Weirs, in their family tree.
Indeed it was the huge wave of migration, mainly of Presbyterians, from Ulster in the 18th and 19th centuries that gave the United States more than a third of its 43 presidents, many more than have emerged from any other ethnic group. They shared what one of them, Theodore Roosevelt - whose mother came from Antrim - described as a "stern and virile" heritage. They also gave their adopted land some of its best and worst leaders.
The first to enter the White House was James Monroe, whose family came from Limavady in Co Derry. He served for two terms from 1817. A tough negotiator, he resisted Spain's ambitions to reconquer its Latin-American colonies and warned Russia not to encroach southwards on the Pacific coast. He laid down what is still known as the Monroe Doctrine. The American continents, he ordained, "are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonisation by any European power".
Gen Andrew Jackson, whose parents came from Carrickfergus in Co Antrim, became a national hero when he defeated the British at the Battle of New Orleans in 1812. He owned land and slaves in Tennessee and was partial to the occasional brawl. He killed a man in a duel for uttering a slur on his wife Rachel. In 1829 he entered the White House for an eight-year term. His portrait adorns the $20 note.
James Buchanan (1857-1861) was considered one of the most forgettable presidents. His great-grandfather was from the Omagh area. There was endless speculation about his sexual orientation. Although he was at one time engaged to a girl called Ann Coleman, he spent 15 years living with William Rufus King. King was called "Mrs Buchanan", "Aunt Fancy" and various other nicknames and many observers speculated that he was more than just a close friend of the president.
After Abraham Lincoln was assassinated in 1865 he was succeeded by Andrew Johnson, who served until 1869. Johnson, whose roots were in Ballyeaston, Co Antrim, was reared in poverty in North Carolina and could not read until he was 17. "You don't have to go to school to become president of the United States", he once said. Johnson vetoed the first civil rights bill because it gave "a perfect equality of the white and black races in every state of the Union". He assured the Governor of Missouri that "this is a country for white men, and by God, as long as I am President, it shall be a government for white men." Congress overrode his veto by a substantial majority and the bill became law. When he tried to sack the secretary for war, he became the first US president to be impeached. He held on to office by a single vote.
He was followed into the White House by the famous Civil War general, Ulysses S. Grant: the S stood for Simpson, the maiden name of his mother, who came from Ballygawley in Co Tyrone. Grant carried some notoriety with him. In 1862, when he was the military governor of Tennessee, Mississippi and Kentucky, he issued an order expelling all Jews from his territory. There was a black market in cotton from the Deep South and Grant was convinced it was being controlled "mostly by Jews and other unprincipled traders". Following a public outcry the order was revoked by President Lincoln.
When he left office in 1877, Grant went into business but he was soon facing bankruptcy. To pay off his debts he wrote his memoirs for the hefty sum of $450,000. Soon after writing the last page he died in 1885. His portrait is on the $50 bill.
Chester Arthur's parents were from Cullybackey, Co Antrim. He occupied the White House from 1881 to 1885 and introduced the first federal immigration law. The measure excluded the entry of paupers, criminals and lunatics and suspended all Chinese immigration for 10 years.
He was followed in 1889 by Grover Cleveland, the son of a Presbyterian minister of Ulster descent. He served for two non-consecutive terms. During his first presidential campaign he openly admitted to being the father of a child born out of wedlock to a shop assistant. At his meetings hecklers used to shout: "Ma, Ma, where's my Pa? Gone to the White House, ha ha ha!" In fact it was never determined whether Cleveland was the actual father. He had agreed to pay child support because he was the only single man among the girl's many admirers.
One of President William McKinley's ancestors, Francis McKinley from Dervock in Co Antrim, was hanged at Coleraine for his part in the Rising of 1798. During his term from 1897 to 1901 McKinley conducted the 100-day war against Spain, allowing Cuba to gain its independence and the United States to annex the Philippines, Guam and Puerto Rica. He was assassinated by a deranged man in 1901.
Another president who took America to war was Woodrow Wilson, who spent two terms in the White House from 1913 to 1921. His grandfather emigrated from Strabane, Co Tyrone to Philadelphia in 1807. Wilson was a reforming president. He abolished child labour and introduced the eight-hour working day. Against strong isolationist feeling he took the US into the first World War on the side of the Allies in 1917 and changed world history.