A Dublin-based genealogy firm has traced US presidential hopeful Barack Obama's Irish roots back to the 17th century, and there is even circumstantial evidence that his ancestors hailed from Cashel, the seat of the High Kings of Ireland.

During Obama's campaign to become the Democratic Party candidate for the US presidency earlier this year, research revealed his great- great-greatgrandfather on his mother's side was a shoemaker called Falmouth Kearney from Moneygall in County Offaly in central Ireland.

Falmouth Kearney emigrated to the US state of Ohio during Ireland's Great Famine of the mid-1800s.

Now Eneclann, a genealogy firm based at Ireland's prestigious Trinity College, has traced the family back to the late 1600s, when the Kearneys were more prosperous Protestant artisans, some of whom, like Obama, were even involved in politics.

"The Kearney family history illustrates, over five generations, a family history that was not untypical in Ireland, but which we don't often consider as a typical Irish emigrant story," Eneclann historian and director of research Fiona Fitzsimons said in a statement received by Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa Thursday.

Eneclann's research, originally a project given to a company trainee, found Obama's sixth great-grandfather, Joseph Kearney, who was born around 1698 and was a wigmaker, a distinguished profession at the time as only the well-to-do wore wigs.

Joseph had four sons, one of whom, Thomas, followed in the family business as a "peruke-maker" as shown in a lease from 1768.

Joseph joined the Guild of Barber Surgeons & Periwigmakers in 1717, and a year later he appears on the roll of Dublin's freemen, those entitled to vote for the city council.

Joseph's older brother Michael turns up around this time as a wigmaker in Castle St next to Dublin Castle.

Michael later invested in property and entered Dublin politics as the city flourished in the 18th century. He was elected master of the Guild of Barber Surgeons in 1726.

The man Michael defeated in the election published a pamphlet denouncing him, of which Eneclann has a copy.

The pamphlet contains what Eneclann describes as a fairly typical piece of political invective from the era: "His head is still running, On tricking and cunning, But he mayn't escape let me tell you, For the Fox has been caught, And pay'd dear at last, For the Geese he had put in his Belly."

Michael's youngest son John, a distant cousin of Obama, became provost of Trinity College from 1799 to 1806 and was later made Church of Ireland (Anglican) bishop of Ossory, a diocese that covers County Kilkenny and parts of Laois.

John Kearney is known to have opposed the Act of Union with Britain of 1801 and his portrait still hangs in Trinity College.

"Interestingly enough, although he is related to a family of wigmakers, he's not wearing a wig himself. At that stage they were ... going out of fashion," philosophy lecturer Joseph O'Gorman recently told RTE radio.

"We were taken by complete surprise to discover an early connection to local politics and a distant cousin who becomes Provost of Trinity College Dublin and Bishop of Ossory," Eneclann's Fitzsimons said.

The change in fashion for wigs led to the Kearney family falling on hard times. The next generation moves from wigs into shoe-making and by this time they are no longer selling in Dublin.

William Kearney (1762-1828) and his son Joseph (ca 1794-1861) were shoe-makers in Offaly, as was Falmouth, who as a teenager emigrated to the United States in 1850.

Falmouth Kearney's daughter Mary Ann married Obama's great-great grandfather, Jacob Dunham.

Eneclann's Fitzsimons recently told RTE that the company had traced as far as they could, but she suspects the Kearney family was of Gaelic-Irish origin.

The circumstantial evidence points to County Tipperary and Cashel, the seat of the High Kings of Ireland, she said.

"There you go, you couldn't make this up," she told RTE.

Find out more at the company's website: www.eneclann.ie.