star-struck Ireland opened its heart to Barack Obama Monday and the U.S. president returned the favour, saying his ancestral homeland had a bright future despite current economic turmoil.
Obama reeled off a dose of vintage hope-fuelled rhetoric at a campaign-style rally of 25,000 people in Dublin, after downing a pint of Guinness stout in the tiny town of Moneygall, which sired his greatgreat-great grandfather.
Dispensing hugs and handshakes, Obama relished the adulation of the Irish, a sharp contrast to the bitter political stew back in Washington, and struck a personal note, saying he and wife Michelle "felt very much at home."
His hosts also seemed smitten. Anne Maher, a teacher who lives in Moneygall, gushed about her encounter with the world's most powerful man.
"He held my hand, he pulled me towards him and kissed my cheek. I'm not going to wash that cheek for a lifetime - and my husband isn't getting near it either," Maher said.
Later, gazing out over a massive crowd, the president proclaimed Ireland would overcome a crisis which saw it go cap-in-hand to the International Monetary Fund and European Union for a bailout by roaring "Is Feidir Linn," his famed slogan "Yes We Can" in Gaelic.
"Yours is a history frequently marked by the greatest of trials and the deepest of sorrows, but yours is also a history of proud and defiant endurance," Obama said, noting America had also endured an economic crisis.
"And Ireland, as trying as these times are, I know our future is still as big and as bright as our children expect it to be. If anyone ever says otherwise, if anybody tells you that your problems are too big or your challenges are too great, that we can't do something, that we shouldn't even try, think about all that we've done together. "If they keep on arguing with you, just respond with a simple creed, 'Is Feidir Linn' - yes we can. Yes we can."
