Ireland Wants to Harvest Heritage in America

So Ireland manager Giovanni Trappatoni wants to scour North America for players with Irish-sounding names to help bolster Ireland's national team. It sounds like he's not Euro-snobbing with this and willing to consider anyone in the hunt for new blood but it sounds kinda messed up in a way, almost offensive maybe to some people.

Take my mother-in-law for instance. She was born a Kelly (she's of Irish-American extraction) but married a Kerekes from Romania. After marrying and having a few kids, the family moved briefly to Kansas City. So one day my mother-in-law went to register the kids for catechism classes at the local church. The nun that was handling the intake started filling out the paperwork for her happily, asked her what their last name was then said, "Kerekes? That doesn't sound like a Catholic name to me." My mother-in-law took umbrage with her assessment, walked out of the room and pretty much hasn't set foot in church outside of a wedding, funeral or christening since.

Now, I'm not making any statement about religion here; I'm just saying that some folks aren't cool with the pigeon hole. That being said, I hope to heaven-on-high that Brandon McDonald, Darius Barnes, Geoff Cameron, Danny Earls, Blair Gavin and any other random MLSer with a hint of stout beer about his last name gets a shot at world football. The more internationals in this league the better, regardless of who they play for or how silly the recruitment method.