Legendary boxer Muham-mad Ali is set to touch down in the old country this September – not his home state of Kentucky, but the rolling hills of Co Clare. Local historians in Ennis have found that the 67-year-old fight champ’s great grandfather Abe Grady was born in the town.
Grady sailed to America in the 1860s and settled in Kentucky, where he married an African-American woman. Their offspring, a son, in turn also found an African-American spouse. One of their children, a girl named Odessa Lee, would grow up to marry a man called Cassius Clay.
In 1942, the couple had a baby boy whom they named after his father. But the world would later know him as Muhammad Ali, one of the greatest boxers ever to set foot in the squared circle.
Next month Ali will finally take up a long-standing invitation from Ennis Town Council to retrace his great grandfather’s footsteps. He will also visit Dublin, where he is to officiate at a fundraiser for his charity, the Alltech Ali Charitable Foundation, which raises money to help educationally underprivileged children.
Ali is no stranger to the Irish capital, having fought Al ‘Blue’ Lewis at Croke Park in July 1972, on the road to his world title victory against George Foreman at ‘The Rumble in the Jungle’ two years later.
