Remembering President’s Kennedy’s Visit to Ireland

The golden jubilee of President John F Kennedy’s visit to Ireland was rightly remembered at various ceremonies around the country in June 2013, most of which were attended by members of the Kennedy family. President Kennedy’s four day visit from June 26 to 29, 1963, which electrified the country, was one of the most memorable events in modern Ireland. There was a great national pride in welcoming the great-grandson of Irish Famine emigrants to the land of his forebears as thirty-fifth President of the United States of America, the first Catholic elected to that office. Kennedy’s charisma, charm, wit and eloquence captured the hearts of Irish people at home and abroad. His visit was superbly covered by the infant Irish television service in black and white pictures (it commenced broadcasting on December 31, 1961), by radio and all the media. President Kennedy received a tumultuous welcome in Dublin, Wexford, Cork, Galway, Limerick, and at his departure from Shannon Airport, later often referring to the visit as "the happiest days of his life."

His speeches, with frequent references to Irish and American historical links and literature, were inspirational,

especially his address to the Oireachtas {a joint sitting of the Irish Upper and Lower Houses of Parliament) on Friday 28, 1963.

Inter alia, he said:

"I am deeply honoured to be your guest in a free parliament in a free Ireland." . . . . . .

"My presence and your welcome , however, only symbolize the many and enduring links

which have bound the Irish and Americans since the earliest days."

Referring to Ireland’s contribution to the world, he said:

"No larger nation did more to keep Christianity and Western culture alive in their darkest centuries.

No larger nation did more to spark the cause of independence in America, indeed, around the world.

And no larger nation has ever provided the world with more literary and artistic genius."

After referring to many links between Ireland and the United States, emigration, and recent progress in the country, he said

"...for the Ireland of 1963, one of the youngest of nations and oldest of civilizations,

has discovered that the achievement of nationhood is not an end but a beginning.

In the years since independence, you have undergone a new and peaceful revolution,

transforming the face of this land while still holding to the old spiritual and cultural values."

After years of economic stagnation and massive emigration, President Kennedy’s Irish visit gave the Irish State a welcome fillip, a new pride in its past, new hope and an exhortation for a better future, as well as praise for its evolving role on the world stage (it had applied for membership of the European Economic Community in 1961). Every Irish person privileged to have heard President Kennedy speak at any of the venues, or who followed his visit on television or on radio or other media never forgot the excitement, pride and hope generated by him. President Kennedy’s Irish visit is remembered today in the National Library of Ireland, in museums in New Ross and Dunganstown (the ancestral home-place of his great-grandfather, Patrick, who became a cooper in East Boston) in County Wexford, and in the Kennedy Museum and Library in Boston.

Every Irish person who can recall November 22, 1963, clearly remember what they were doing when they heard of President Kennedy’s assassination in Dallas, Texas. Within a short time, his famed photograph with Pope John xxiii and Pope Paul vi was displayed in numerous Irish homes for years afterwards.

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