ROSMUC, Ireland — “Would I like to be president?”
Mayor Martin J. Walsh of Boston repeated the question Tuesday from a precocious student at an elementary school in this picturesque village on Ireland’s west coast.
“I don’t know,” Walsh said. “It’s a tough job.”
Students at that school, once attended by Walsh’s mother, and at five others peppered Walsh with questions. Favorite ice cream? Coffee with chocolate jimmies. Did he get many days off? No. Did he know actor Mark Wahlberg? They had dinner recently.
But at almost every stop, this is what students really wanted: an answer to what is known in political circles as “The Question.” Would Walsh seek the presidency? First, he told them, he needed to win reelection as mayor. He did tell one group he had made a trip to the Oval Office.
“When I walked in, all I did was touch the desk a few times,” Walsh said, “because I’m not sure when I’m going to get back in there.”
The mayor visited the schools as he concluded a five-day visit to his parents’ homeland in Connemara, a rugged, rural region where he spent summers as a child.
Students greeted him by waving American flags, and they performed a high-stepping Irish dance to his campaign anthem, “I’m Shipping Up to Boston.”
At his last stop, a high school in Carna, Walsh got it again.
“Will I be president of America?” Walsh said. “I don’t know, but I’ve gotten that question about seven times today.”