Press coverage of Prime Minister Mark Carney’s latest foreign trip notes that his first stop is Ireland, where he has strong ancestral roots.
According to an article from EPIC, the Irish Emigration Museum, three of Mark Carney’s four grandparents trace their origins to Counties Mayo and Cavan.
On his paternal side, his grandfather Robert Carney, who had served in the IRA during the War of Independence, and his grandmother Nora Moran from County Mayo, emigrated when opportunities in the west of Ireland following independence remained limited.
His grandmother Margaret Frances Gaffney’s journey takes the family from coal prospecting in Cavan during the 1860s and 1870s, to the coalfields of Lanarkshire in the 1880s. Coming to Canada, settlement was in the booming colliery town of Wellington, now part of Nanaimo. There, she married John Anthony ‘Jack’ Kemper, born in Dallas, Texas. Both of his parents were born in Germany.
Mark Carney is eligible for Irish citizenship, and maybe for US citizenship.
Interesting John.. Thank you!