The toughest Irishman to represent that great country of Iron fisted, Apple-nosed booze donkey hot-heads is NOT Gerry Quarry or Gerry Cooney! It is In fact Muhammad Ali!

Ali has Irish roots. His great grandfather was a man named Abe Grady,
from County Clare in Ireland, who came to the U.S. in the 1860's and married
an African-American woman.

Irish and Irish-American New Yorkers are celebrating the discovery of boxing legend Muhammad Ali's Irish heritage.

The Clare Heritage Centre in Corofin, Ireland, says a man named Abe Grady from Ennis, County Clare, who emigrated to America in the 1860s is the three-time heavyweight champion's great-grandfather.

"We knew it all along," said Brian McCabe, 46, a proud Brooklyn Irish-American and former fight trainer. "Anyone that could fight and speak that well has to have some Irish in him.

"What about Ali's greatest opponent, Joe Frazier?," added McCabe, toasting both former champs. "He led with his face -- there must be some Irish in him too."

Abe Grady arrived around the time of the American Civil War. He landed in New Orleans and worked his way up along the Mississippi as a laborer before settling in Kentucky and marrying an African-American woman, according to Antoinette O'Brien, a Clare Heritage Centre genealogist.

Their son John married and had a daughter, Odessa, who married Cassius Clay Sr. in the 1930s. Those were Muhammad Ali's parents. Ali, 65, was born Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr. but changed his name when he converted to Islam in 1964.

Some Irish expatriots expressed surprise at the connection.


The Irish ancestry was not news to Ali.

When Ali visited Ireland in 1972, he mentioned his Irish forefather Grady twice to the press, but nobody picked up on it, said O'Brien, the genealogist. A researcher discovered the interview while preparing a documentary for the Irish language TV channel TG4, she said.


P.S. Please do not accuse me of "Racism"
I had a Irish Grandfather who used to get drunk and pass out on our sun deck, his name was.... Paddy O'Furniture.