Kerry is not an Irish name anyway

One of us has been corresponding with Roger Ailes about this, but for completeness we'll put the posting here since Roger seems swamped. There was a controversy about whether Senator John Kerry allowed people to think he was Irish-American when he is not. But just putting that surname out there doesn't make people think he's Irish -- because Kerry is a rare Irish surname. It is the name of a county but barring some Ellis Island substitution of place name for original surname (like Corleone-Andolini), relatively few people of Irish descent will have that name. Check the Irish phone directory online:

There are precisely 14 Kerry listings. There are over 12,000 Murphy listings. If the Senator's family liked the sound of that name and wanted to seem Irish, they would have spelt it like like Mariah does.

UPDATE 10 June '04: The distinction between the county name and actual ancestry is understood in Ireland, unlike at the Boston Globe. In a report linked to the death of Ronald Reagan, this Irish Times story notes:

[Ballybunion, Co. Kerry] also has a bronze statue of President Bill Clinton, unveiled by the president during a visit to play golf. There are tentative plans to invite presidential hopeful Mr John Kerry, because of his connections with the name of the county, should he become president.