Muhammad Ali visits Irish ancestral home

[JonLP24]

DUBLIN (Reuters) - Boxing legend Muhammad Ali was given a hero's welcome on Tuesday when he visited Ennis, his ancestral home town in Ireland, and was made an honorary freeman at a reception watched by hundreds on big screens outside.

Like millions of other Americans, Ali, a champion of the black civil rights movement, has Irish forebears.

The 67-year-old's great-grandfather, Abe O'Grady, emigrated from Ennis, County Clare, in the 1860s and distant relatives of the three-times world heavyweight champion were overjoyed that "The Greatest" was paying them a visit.

Shopkeepers in Ennis, a bustling town 150 miles southwest of Dublin, festooned their premises with boxing gloves, American flags and pictures of the boxer in his prime.

Residents of Turnpike Road, where Abe's home stood and a plaque to his great-grandson will be unveiled, had scrubbed their windows before the boxer's drive through the town.

http://www.reuters.com/article/peopleNews/idUSTRE5805HZ20090901

[H2O Man]

1. I've been watching this.

It's nice to see The Champ out and about. I thought it was good that he met with Ricky Hatton in England before going to the Old Sod. Hatton said he broke down crying after Ali left, because of the intensity of the emotions he felt.

[joeybee12]

2. This subject line sounds like a headline to an onion story...n/t

[Auggie]

3. He's looking good