The US President-elect Donald Trump is set to appoint the son of an advisor to Joe Kennedy as the next US ambassador to Ireland.
Joe Kennedy was the father of the late US President John F Kennedy.
Presidential campaign correspondent with the New York Times, Maggie Haberman, says Mr Trump has confirmed the selection of Brian Burns to her.
In my minor ambassador obsession, Trump tells me he intends to make Brian Burns, son of Joe Kennedy adviser, the ambassador to Ireland
— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) December 30, 2016
Mr Burns is a businessman from Massachusetts and a friend of Trump's. He is also the grandson of Irish immigrants.
He is a member of the Irish America Hall of Fame, which he was inducted into in 2013.
Mr Burns traces his roots to Kerry, and is a graduate of The College of the Holy Cross.
He also graduated from Harvard Law School at the age of 23.
In 1963, he was named the youngest director of the American Irish Foundation, which was established that year by John F Kennedy and President Eamon de Valera.
Works from his personal collection of Irish art have been exhibited at Dublin's Hugh Lane Gallery and the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.
He was also a principal benefactor of the first Irish Famine memorial in Cambridge, Massachusetts - and in 2012, donated a key famine-era painting from his collection to Quinnipiac University's Ireland's Great Hunger Museum in Connecticut.
The US embassy in Dublin told Newstalk.com that any comment on the post of ambassador would come from the administration or from Mr Trump's transition team.
While confirmation of any such appointment would come directly from the White House.
Current US Ambassador Kevin F O'Malley was sworn in on September 30th, 2014.
