Well, kind of. Now that they know they’re related, maybe it will be easier to get together for that beer. From ABC News, not The Onion:

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.

Hostages? Interesting lineage for two people related also by an incident in which one took another into custody.