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President Obama in Ireland


Strider

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I know his name and title. ;) I was just being a smart-aleck because I hear so many people refer to Prince Philip as "what's his name" when discussing Queen Elizabeth.

The second most asked question regarding the Queen's hubby is why is he a prince and not a king?

The short answer being that marriage confers no royal rank or privileges upon the male. But it does a woman. Hence, a man marrying a Queen can't be King, but a woman marrying a King can be Queen.

Was Prince Philip ever in line for succession, or must he have been born in Britain to succeed? Barack Obama was born in Hawaii, which qualified him for the U.S. Presidency, so maybe it's a similar requirement. Nice of President Obama to visit the ancestral land.

Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (born Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark; 10 June 1921)is the husband of Elizabeth II. He is the United Kingdom's longest-serving consort and the oldest serving spouse of a reigning British monarch.A member of the Danish-German House of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg, Prince Philip was born into the Greek royal family, but his family was exiled from Greece when he was a child. After being educated in Germany and the UK, at the age of 18 he joined the British Royal Navy, enrolling at Dartmouth Naval College. It was during this time he began corresponding with Elizabeth, the eldest daughter and heir presumptive of King George VI. During World War II he served with the Mediterranean and Pacific fleets.

After the war, Philip was granted permission by George VI to marry Elizabeth. Prior to the official engagement announcement, he renounced his Greek and Danish royal titles, converted from Greek Orthodoxy to Anglicanism, and became a naturalised British subject, adopting the surname Mountbatten from his British maternal grandparents.

After an official engagement of five months, as Lieutenant Philip Mountbatten he married Elizabeth on 20 November 1947. On his marriage, he was granted the style of His Royal Highness and the title of Duke of Edinburgh by his father-in-law. Philip left active service, having reached the rank of Commander, when Elizabeth became Queen in 1952. His wife made him a Prince of the United Kingdom in 1957.

source: wiki

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Of course there were those little things like siding with us during the revolution and not burning our capital to the ground.. But who's keeping track anyway. :whistling:

True, but that was in the 1700's; a lot o' water has gone under the bridge since then.

Anyhoo, back to Prince Philip: isn't he Greek, so he can't be in line for the throne.

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Anyhoo, back to Prince Philip: isn't he Greek, so he can't be in line for the throne.

That's not how the line of succession works. Besides, his family was Greek in name only. He has no Greek blood and doesn't even speak the language. Both Elizabeth and Philip share a common ancestor - Queen Victoria. She's descended from her eldest son Edward VII, he's descended from her daughter Alice. By the by, he's Queen Victoria's oldest-living great-grandchild.

Queen Victoria -- Edward VII -- George V -- George VI -- Elizabeth

Queen Victoria -- Alice -- Victoria Mountbatten, Marchioness of Milford Haven -- Princess Andrew of Greece and Denmark -- Philip

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Fascinating. The royal families of Europe are more inbred than a hillbilly clan in the mountains of Appalachia. Kidding, of course!

Back to the subject at hand: Strider wanted to hear about Mr. Obama's visit to the motherland. NYT columnist Maureen Dowd has written a column about it (she visited Moneygall as well): http://www.irishcentral.com/news/Maureen-Dowd-writes-on-Obama-mania-in-Moneygall-122410264.html

[or you can just go straight to the New York Times site and read her column but you have to register IIRC]

Everyone in town is getting in on the act she points out. The bakery hawks Obama brown bread 'fit for a president.'" Along with the usual Irish tchotchkes, like plaques reading "Alcohol doesnt cause hangovers, waking up does," shops have sprung up to sell Obama clocks, magnets, lighters and T-shirts reading Obama Is Feidir Linn (Gaelic for Yes We Can) and Whats the Craic Barack? (craic means fun). Happy to share the credit for Obamas heritage, they even put travel pamphlets for Kenya in the window of the T-shirt store.

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Phil the Greek isn't in it. Spouses are ignored, for obvious reasons.

Actually, you're wrong. Philip is in the line of succession, as he's Queen Victoria's great-grandson. His marriage to Elizabeth didn't remove him from that line, as he didn't marry a Catholic, married with the consent of the King, and hasn't since his marriage, converted to Catholicism. He's obviously never going to be King, because in order for him to become King after his wife dies, a whole lot of people need to suddenly drop dead, but however remote the possibility, it's still there.

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^ Cool - being corrected by an Anglophile! Nice one, Electrophile. You've obviously studied this at length - more so than Wikipedia, for example, which doesn't list him amongst the 45 other pale descendents. No sign of the corgis either. 'Never trust Wikipedia - ask Electrophile first!' :D

I'd go edit the Wiki entry, if I gave a toss ;)

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