Picking up from Al Roker's puffery about Barack Obama's Irish heritage from yesterday, NBC's Meredith Vieira, on Tuesday's "Today" show asked Ireland's President Mary McAleese to gauge the U.S. president's popularity on the Emerald Isle as she queried, "Barack Obama, our new president...I understand much loved here...What is it about Barack Obama that instills in, in the people of Ireland?" To which McAleese responded that Obama' is a "big favorite," and that "He arrived at a time when the world was in a very ugly mood of great despair. He had really captured the imagination, particularly of young people."

McAleese, after being prodded by Vieira, also revealed her own son campaigned for Obama in '08, and bragged that he predicted he would be President when he first met him at the 2004 Democratic Convention.

The following is a transcript of the relevant portion of the interview as it was aired on the March 17, "Today" show: