It is a Small World!

Of all the potential twists of minutiae in the Gates affair, I admit I didn't see this coming:

Henry Louis Gates Jr., the black professor at the center of the racial story involving his arrest outside his Harvard University-owned house, has spoken proudly of his Irish roots.

Strangely enough, he and the Cambridge, Mass., police officer who arrested him, Sgt. James Crowley, both trace their ancestry back to the legendary Niall of the Nine Hostages.

The Gates/Crowley patriarch is quite a character and left quite the heritage. Must be a large and loud (one might even say "tumultuous") family reunion!