Reagan's Irish Roots; From Ballyporeen to the White House

Irish Voice, June, 2004 by O'Dowd, Niall

O'Dowd, Niall Irish Voice 06-15-2004 "TODAY I come back to you as a descendant of people who were buried here in pauper's graves." Thus did President Ronald Wilson Reagan announce himself when he returned to the Irish village in Ballyporeen, Co. Tipperary, in June of 1984. It was, perhaps, the most explicit statement of his pride in his ethnicity that he made in his career. It was a long way from Ballyporeen to Dixon, Illinois (population 15,700), where Ronald Reagan, 40th president of the United States, spent his formative years from 1920 to 1929.

Though he was born in nearby Tampico in 1911, the years Reagan spent in Dixon shaped the man more thoroughly than any other period of his life, and he often returned to them in interviews. Dixon is a typical...

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