A STAR-STRUCK Ireland opened its heart to Barack Obama and the US president returned the favour, saying his ancestral homeland had a bright future despite current economic turmoil.
Mr Obama reeled off a dose of vintage hope-fuelled rhetoric at a campaign-style rally of 25,000 people in Dublin, after downing a pint of Guinness stout in the tiny town of Moneygall, which sired his great-great-great grandfather.
Dispensing hugs and handshakes, Mr Obama relished the adulation of the Irish, a sharp contrast to the bitter political stew back in Washington, and struck a personal note, saying he and wife Michelle "felt very much at home".
His hosts also seemed smitten. Anne Maher, a teacher who lives in Moneygall, gushed about her encounter with the world's most powerful man.
"He held my hand, he pulled me towards him and kissed my cheek. I'm not going to wash that cheek for a lifetime - and my husband isn't getting near it either," Ms Maher said.
Later, gazing out over a massive crowd, the president proclaimed Ireland would overcome a crisis which saw it go cap-in-hand to the International Monetary Fund and European Union for a bailout by roaring "Is Feidir Linn", his famed slogan "Yes We Can" in Gaelic.
"Yours is a history frequently marked by the greatest of trials and the deepest of sorrows, but yours is also a history of proud and defiant endurance," Mr Obama said, noting America had also endured an economic crisis.
"And Ireland, as trying as these times are, I know our future is still as big and as bright as our children expect it to be.
"If anyone ever says otherwise, if anybody tells you that your problems are too big or your challenges are too great, that we can't do something, that we shouldn't even try, think about all that we've done together.
"If they keep on arguing with you, just respond with a simple creed, 'Is Feidir Linn' - yes we can. Yes we can."
Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny had earlier warmed up the crowd by welcoming the Hawaii-born son of a Kenyan father and a white American mother back to his Irish "family" as America's first black president.
"The 44th president is different - because, ladies and gentlemen, he doesn't just speak about the American dream, he is the American dream!"
Mr Obama, speaking between two screens of bulletproof glass, opened his speech with a joke: "My name is Barack Obama of the Moneygall Obamas."
"We come to find the apostrophe we lost somewhere along the way."
Earlier, Mr Obama braved rain and wind to helicopter to the County Offaly town from where his ancestor Falmouth Kearney, the humble 19-year-old son of a shoemaker set course for the new world 160 years ago.
He met Henry Healy, a 26-year-old resident and the president's eighth cousin, who Mr Obama said had now been dubbed "Henry the Eighth". Crowds welcomed him to the town waving Irish tricolours and the Stars and Stripes.
It was in the quaint room of a crowded pub that Mr Obama relished a creamy Guinness while his wife gamely sampled a half pint.
"I just want you to know the president pays his bar tab," Mr Obama said after spending 25 minutes in the Ollie Hayes pub.
The only downbeat moment of the day came when the White House announced that mr Obama would leave for his next stop, London, today instead of tomorrow to outrun an ash cloud spewing out of a volcano in Iceland.
That meant that the president would not spend a single night on Irish soil, after flying in on the long-awaited homecoming of sorts overnight.
Ireland was the first stop on a four-nation tour which will also take in the G8 summit in France and a stop in Poland, with the visit likely to be dominated by the NATO-led operation in Libya and the war in Afghanistan.