{"id":81890,"date":"2025-09-23T21:49:11","date_gmt":"2025-09-23T21:49:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/81890\/"},"modified":"2025-09-23T21:49:11","modified_gmt":"2025-09-23T21:49:11","slug":"barack-obama-to-be-conferred-with-freedom-of-dublin-at-ceremony-on-thursday-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/81890\/","title":{"rendered":"Barack Obama to be conferred with freedom of Dublin at ceremony on Thursday \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall b-it-article-body__text--left\">Former US president <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/barack-obama\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/barack-obama\">Barack Obama<\/a> is set to receive the freedom of the city of Dublin later this week. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall b-it-article-body__text--left\">Lord Mayor of Dublin <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/ray-mcadam\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/ray-mcadam\">Ray McAdam <\/a>said it is his \u201cfirm expectation\u201d Mr Obama will be awarded the city\u2019s highest honour at an event on Thursday. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The Fine Gael councillor said arrangements are being finalised with Mr Obama\u2019s team. He said an invitation was extended to the former US president last July, which was accepted over recent days. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cI expect the event to proceed this Thursday,\u201d Mr McAdam told The Irish Times on Tuesday. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Mr Obama is visiting the capital this week for a sold-out event at the 3Arena, An Evening with President Barack Obama, In Conversation with Fintan O\u2019Toole on Friday evening.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">In 2017, a proposal to award the freedom of the capital to Mr Obama and his wife Michelle faced some opposition before being approved by 30 to 23 votes.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall b-it-article-body__text--left\">It had been proposed by then lord mayor Brendan Carr, who cited the Democrat\u2019s Irish roots and support for peace in Northern Ireland, shortly after he was succeeded by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/donald-trump\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/donald-trump\">Donald Trump.<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The then Labour councillor said while he did not wish to \u201ccanonise the Obamas\u201d or declare his presidency \u201ca success\u201d, Mr Obama was a \u201cstabilising and moderating\u201d influence on US foreign policy.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cA similar era, unfortunately, will not be experienced again for some time,\u201d Mr Carr said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall b-it-article-body__text--left\">People Before Profit councillor Conor Reddy said over recent weeks that the invitation should be rescinded over the former Democratic president\u2019s support of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/israel\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/israel\">Israel<\/a> and military expansion in the Middle East whilst in office.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former US president Barack Obama is set to receive the freedom of the city of Dublin later this&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":81891,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[4750,9,10,784,18,13,14,6,19,17,11,12,15,16,30889,5,7,8],"class_list":{"0":"post-81890","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-barack-obama","9":"tag-breaking-news","10":"tag-breakingnews","11":"tag-dublin-city-council","12":"tag-eire","13":"tag-featured-news","14":"tag-featurednews","15":"tag-headlines","16":"tag-ie","17":"tag-ireland","18":"tag-latest-news","19":"tag-latestnews","20":"tag-main-news","21":"tag-mainnews","22":"tag-michelle-obama","23":"tag-news","24":"tag-top-stories","25":"tag-topstories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81890","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81890"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81890\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/81891"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81890"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81890"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81890"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}