Osborne's, Obama's and Wilde's Irish roots go online

Chancellor George Osborne, United States President Barack Obama and Oscar Wilde are among a host of public figures whose Irish ancestry has been revealed in an online database.

The predecessors of Walt Disney, CS Lewis and John F Kennedy also feature in the updated online collection of 19th-century historical Irish records, published ahead of St Patrick's Day on Thursday.

Mr Osborne is heir to the baronetcy of Ballentaylor. His great-great-great-grandfather, Sir Henry Osborne, can be found in the Tithe Applotment Books, living in County Tipperary in 1824.

More than a quarter of US presidents have claimed Irish roots, including JFK, whose great-great-grandfather lived in Wexford.

His name is found in Griffith's Valuation of Ireland, 1848-1864, which features more than 2.5 million names and addresses in land tax records.

Griffith's also shows William Wilde, father of Oscar Wilde, living at Westland Row, Dublin, where the author was born in 1854.