Carson Greeted In Ireland By Group of Dalys After Learning His Family History

TODAY’s trip to Ireland has doubled as a homecoming for Carson Daly.

The TODAY co-host not only learned more about his family’s roots on the Emerald Isle, he was also surprised with heartwarming hugs from a group of Dalys in Kenmare in County Kerry, including his actual distant cousin.

It turns out that hundreds of years before Carson and his late mother became known for their work on television, the Daly family were coal miners in Ireland.

“This is every person’s dream is to figure out a little bit about where they come from,” Carson said on TODAY Oct. 16.

The TODAY co-host is one of more than 32 million Americans who claim Irish ancestry, a number six times greater than the entire population of the Emerald Isle.

To gain more insight into his family’s history, Carson enlisted the help of genealogist Fiona Fitzimons. She is the director of the Irish Family History Center at EPIC The Irish Emigration Museum in Dublin.

Unlike genealogy sites like Ancestry.com or the personal genetics company 23andMe, which use DNA to trace family origins, Fitzsimons and her team rely on birth, marriage and immigration records.

Carson’s sister, Quinn Daly, has served as his family’s historian over the years, and she was just as eager as Carson to find out more about their roots.

“We took the Ancestry test, but we don’t actually know the history,” Quinn said on TODAY. “Like we know the DNA part of it, but we don’t know the context.”

Their father, Jim Daly, died of bladder cancer in 1979 when Carson was 5 years old.

“We lost our dad at a very young age, and I think our family tree has been kind of a difficult one for us to track down,” Carson said.

Carson was able to see historical documents listing moments in his family’s history, thanks to Fitzsimons.

“We’ve got your family back to the early 1800s,” she said. “We found that your Dalys are colliers. They’re coal miners.”

That skill was particularly crucial for the family at the time.

“In the 1840s, we had a great famine, but your ancestors, because they were colliers, because they were skilled laborers, they actually had opportunities,” Fitzsimons told Carson.

“That is just blowing my mind,” Carson said. “You’re basically saying that my family was able to survive obviously one of the most devastating things that’s ever happened to the country because they had a skillset of a trade. I tell my kids who are going to college all the time. I’m always reminding them of the trades.”

Carson also learned that the woman his great-grandfather married in 1903 was named Mary Quinn, whose last name is now Carson’s sister’s first name.

“I don’t even know if we knew it was a family name,” Carson said.

Fitzsimons mapped out Carson’s lineage to three regions in Ireland — Ballinagleragh and Kiltoghert in County Leitrim, and Crettyard in County Laois.

She pinpointed that his ancestors on his mother and father’s sides both immigrated to America and met in New Jersey.

“This makes me an absolute badass by bloodline,” Carson said. “The families come together and survive and thrive and fight wars in India, and then all end up drinking Guinness in New Jersey, and ultimately this kid’s born in California.”

Carson also learned that he may have relatives who remained in Ireland. Daly is one of the 15 most common last names in the country.

“We found that there are some Dalys still in the same parish and even in the same townland that your family came from,” Fitzsimons said. “Certainly, up until the last five years, so it’s possible that you have family members that remain behind, that survived and continued.”

Carson wondered if one of those relatives might be Paul Hewson.

“Is there any chance I’m related to Bono?” he asked.

“Statistically, it’s totally possible, but, ummm…” Fitzsimons said while laughing.

Savannah Guthrie surprised Carson on the streets of Kenmare with a meet-up among a group of Dalys. After sharing hugs, he was presented with a framed flag of Ireland by a local senator and met face to face with a distant cousin from his paternal grandfather’s side named Lorraine.

“There’s no place like home,” Lorraine told Carson in Gaelic. “And the other thing I wanted to say is, ‘You may leave Ireland, but Ireland will always be with you.’”

Sponsored by Tourism Ireland.