A primrose for the President

A NEW PRIMROSE created at a garden centre in Stoneyford will be presented to President Barack Obama on St Patrick’s Day.

The special Irish primrose has been named in honour of the maternal ancestral village of President Obama. The first plants of the primrose named Primula Moneygall are already growing locally in USA and now waiting for their introduction to the Whitehouse garden. This new primrose variety will be gifted to President and Mrs Obama during their state visit by An Taoiseach Enda Kenny and Mrs Fionnuala Kenny on Sunday.

“I am delighted and honoured that our flowers will be in the White House. We are getting a lot of attention from the US over it,” said Pat Fitzgerald of Fitzgeralds Nurseries in Stoneyford.

Primula Moneygall has similar flower colour and habit as our native Irish primrose.‘Moneygall’ along with a number of new Irish primroses now available worldwide has been raised from old Irish varieties through many years of conservation, breeding and selection work by Joe Kennedy and Pat FitzGerald.

This is the second time that flowers from the Stoneyford Nurseries have ended up in the home of America’s First Citizen. In 2011 the Drumcliffe Primrose was presented to the Obamas to mark the 50th inauguration of John F Kennedy. “The fact that it was a Kennedy (Joe) and myself were working on it was somewhat fitting. The Taoiseach’s office heard about it and decided to gift it to President Obama,” he added.