CO-HOST JAMIE RICHARDSON: The JFK35 Podcast is made possible through generous support from the Blanche & Irving Laurie Foundation.
[PODCAST INTRO BEGINS]
[THEME MUSIC PLAYING]
JOHN F. KENNEDY: My friends, Ireland's hour has come. You have something to give to the world, and that is a future of peace with freedom.
CO-HOST MATT PORTER: When John F. Kennedy became the first sitting US President to visit Ireland, it wasn't simply a trip to retrace his family roots. In what would become the president's final foreign excursion, he called on Ireland to play its role to help preserve world peace. We'll look back on those four days in the Emerald Isle and how his Irish visit would jumpstart a strengthening of ties between our two nations. Next, on JFK35.
PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY: And so my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country. [CHEERING AND APPLAUSE]
[PODCAST INTRO ENDS]
MATT PORTER: Hello, I'm Matt Porter. Welcome to JFK35. In the summer of 1963, President John F. Kennedy visited Ireland, the ancestral home of his eight great-grandparents. The visit would be the first time a sitting American president came to Ireland. President Kennedy made several key stops across the country. Crowds lined up along roads throughout his journey cheering him as a favorite son, the first Irish Catholic President of the United States. Kennedy visited his family's homestead and Dunganstown in the county of Wexford.
JOHN F. KENNEDY: I want to express my pleasure at being back from whence I came. There is an impression in Washington that there are no Kennedys left in Ireland, that they're all in Washington.
MATT PORTER: There, the president, accompanied by his sisters Jean Kennedy Smith and Eunice Kennedy Shriver, met with his second cousin, Mary Ryan, who lived on their great-grandfather's homestead with her two daughters, Josie and Mary Ann. Tables of cakes and sandwiches were served and locals dubbed it the largest tea party in the history of Dunganstown.
JOHN F. KENNEDY: When my great-grandfather left here to become a cooper in East Boston, he carried nothing with him except two things. A strong religious faith and a strong desire for liberty. And I'm glad to say--
[CHEERS AND APPLAUSE]
And I'm glad to say that all of his great-grandchildren have valued that inheritance.
MATT PORTER: While in Wexford, Kennedy said the Irish's strength of spirit could be an example for other countries under the thumb of authoritarian regimes.
JOHN F. KENNEDY: And therefore, those who may feel that in these difficult times, who may believe that freedom may be on the run, or that some nations may be permanently subjugated and eventually wiped out, would do well to remember Ireland.
[CHEERS AND APPLAUSE]
MATT PORTER: In addition to being the first sitting president to visit Ireland, John F. Kennedy was the first foreign leader to speak to both houses of the Oireachtas or the Irish Parliament. Cameras were allowed in the chamber for the first time to capture his address. Kennedy began his speech with a presentation of the flag of the 69th Infantry Regiment of New York, also known as the Irish Brigade.
The 1,200 men who wore green sprig in their hats fought in Fredericksburg, Maryland on one of the deadliest battlefields of the American Civil War. That day, only 280 men of the regiment survived. Kennedy recognized their bravery and commitment to freedom. In response, he told the Irish Parliament that America stood with the Republic of Ireland and its people.
JOHN F. KENNEDY: No people ever believed more deeply in the cause of Irish freedom than the people of the United States.
[APPLAUSE]
And no country contributed more to building my own than your sons and daughters. They came to our shores in a mixture of hope and agony. And I would not underrate the difficulties of their course once they arrived in the United States. They left behind hearts, fields, and a nation yearning to be free.
MATT PORTER: Because Britain retain control of Northern Ireland, it was diplomatically sensitive for a US president to address the issue of Irish independence. And yet, Kennedy said he was honored to be welcomed into the free parliament of a free Ireland. He had high hopes for the country to become a leader among nations in the honorable work to preserve peace in the world.
JOHN F. KENNEDY: I am glad, therefore, that Ireland is moving in the mainstream of current world events. For I sincerely believe that your future is as promising as your past is proud. And that your destiny lies not as a peaceful island in a sea of troubles, but as a maker and a shaper of world peace.
MATT PORTER: Just as President Kennedy spoke to Americans about their agency to make good things happen, his hopes for the people of Ireland echoed a similar message.
JOHN F. KENNEDY: It is that quality of the Irish, the remarkable combination of hope, confidence, and imagination that is needed more than ever today. The problems of the world cannot possibly be solved by skeptics or cynics whose horizons are limited by the obvious realities. We need men who can dream of things that never were and ask, why not?
MATT PORTER: Those four days in Ireland would be a memorable ones for the president. The traditional welcome in Ireland was Céad Míle Fáilte, or a 100,000 welcomes. On his trip with Irish citizens lining the streets and peering their heads out of windows trying to get a look at the president, Kennedy would say at the end of his trip how much the warm welcome meant to him. His remarks on the last day in Galway seemed eerily prescient as this would be his last foreign trip before his assassination five months later.
JOHN F. KENNEDY: So I must say that though other days may not be so bright as we look towards the future, that the brightest days will continue to be those in which we visited you here in Ireland.
MATT PORTER: Joining me now is Professor Marion Casey, a historian of Irish and Irish-American history from New York University. Professor Casey trained at both the University of Dublin and NYU and is familiar with the Irish experience from both Irish and American perspectives. Marion, thank you for joining me today.
MARION CASEY: You're very welcome.
MATT PORTER: So Marion, we wanted to talk a little bit about President Kennedy, obviously his Irish visit, and his relationship with Ireland, and just in general the American presidency's relationship with Ireland. President Kennedy was the first Irish Catholic to be elected president. How did the people of Ireland react to that news?
MARION CASEY: They were overjoyed, they were overjoyed. It came at a particularly new dawn for Ireland itself, from modern Ireland. So it's coinciding with an economic turnaround and a recognition by the United Nations and world powers that Ireland was a legitimate nation and could play some kind of a role on the world stage. And so, yeah, having one of their own make it to the White House at just that particular moment was fantastic for the image of Ireland in America and a confirmation of self-worth in Ireland itself, if that makes sense.
MATT PORTER: Yeah. And he would be the first sitting president to visit Ireland in 1963. Obviously that was a tremendous event for the people of Ireland. Can you describe the excitement for it from the Irish perspective? What did it mean for them to have President Kennedy visit?
MARION CASEY: Well, there's a number of ways to look at it. It was seen by his own extended family as a homecoming. But the Kennedys had had a relationship with Ireland prior to '63. I believe John F. Kennedy himself visited Ireland while the family was based in London. Joe Kennedy did not go to Ireland, but I think Joe Jr. and John F. Kennedy went and toured around. Maybe with one of their sisters, too, you'd have to look that up to be sure.
And he had written a piece on De Valera in Ireland in 1945 that was published in the New York Journal American. So somewhere in his consciousness, Ireland existed. So for his extended family, it was a homecoming. For the average Irish man and woman, it was the arrival of a celebrity in a way. It was a major social event in the country.
We have in the Archives of Irish America at New York University a flag that was flown out of the window of a house along his parade route. It just is a portrait of Kennedy. So the average person was invested in this. I'm not sure exactly why. Part of it, it was his youth and charm, I'm sure. Part of it was the prestige of the office that he represented.
Part of it was that almost everybody in Ireland in 1963 had family-- extended family in the United States. So the connection between the two countries was intimate from the perspective of family history. So by extension, he was a returning family member even though they weren't exactly related to him, you know what I mean?
MATT PORTER: And Ireland had this unique situation right where a number-- like a significant part of its population had left to other countries. So maybe unlike other countries President Kennedy visited, there was this unique diaspora connection between him, his family, and America, and then his extended family in Ireland.
MARION CASEY: Yeah. I believe in one of the stops he made in Ireland-- it actually might have been in New Ross. He said-- he looks out over the harbor and he says, well, if my family hadn't emigrated, I'd probably be employed right over there right now, this understanding that the decision to leave Ireland in previous generations had changed the trajectory of his life.
MATT PORTER: Right. I think right on the tarmac in Dublin when he landed, his first remarks to the country in Ireland, Kennedy pointed out that all eight of his great-grandparents had left Ireland during the famine crisis, most within months of each other. He noted that the Irish in America and their other adopted countries became very devoted citizens. How do you think that played in Ireland, that portrait of the Irish abroad?
MARION CASEY: I think that for most people in Ireland in the 1950s and the 1960s, you're looking at a society in which the vast majority of young people came of age and left the country. So you're on an island where you have those who have been basically left behind in a static economy and a very socially conservative environment. And they get all these glowing letters from abroad.
They have siblings and cousins who come home wearing the American Army uniform during the-- especially during the Korean War when you have a lot of Irish-- newly naturalized Irish citizens based in Germany, and they get leave and they come to visit their family in Ireland. And so there's a pride. There's a pride in that our brothers and sisters and our cousins have done well in America, and they are serving proudly in the United States Army, for example.
MATT PORTER: So more of a pride than like a feeling of missing these people, what could they have done had they stayed. It was is much more of a pride.
MARION CASEY: Yes. Ireland's on a path towards what you're describing, but that doesn't come until maybe the 1960s. And again, it really comes in the late '80s, but it's a different phenomenon. In the 1960s we're talking about something entirely different. It was more an-- and almost-- this may not play very well with listeners, but it's almost a wishful thinking that maybe I should have gone to America, too.
MATT PORTER: Interesting. And I think this touches on it, but there was such an outpouring of love or cheering or excitement for his visit. And then the mourning not long after President Kennedy was assassinated, this was his last foreign trip. You've touched on it a bit, but I'll ask it more directly, why was there so much love for Kennedy and his success as he wasn't an Irish president, he wasn't an Irish figure, he was an American figure?
MARION CASEY: I think it does go back to the youthfulness and his skill. We are in a media age-- we're entering a media age in the United States, and he was very telegenic. And he had a good rapport with the press, so he made a good impression. Television in Ireland was in its absolute infancy in '63. The brand new national television network had just started, but they didn't-- it wasn't fully rolled out. So they had to borrow cameras and equipment and personnel from the BBC in order to cover this journey in Ireland. And the historian Rob Savage at Boston College has done some writing on this aspect of it.
So in other words, people who didn't actually see Kennedy in-person in Ireland, saw him on television in a new medium. So it was incredibly exciting to-- the confluence of two things are happening at that time. The arrival of the President of the United States and also the arrival of television in the country.
MATT PORTER: Which is the story of JFK's presidency. He is the first real television president. And then as like there was so much love among everybody watching this. and he was the he was invited to speak at the Houses of the Oireachtas, which is the Irish Parliament, similar to our Congress. The first foreign head of state to speak there. And again, as you mentioned, television, television cameras were allowed in there for the first time to cover that speech.
And the question is, did a lot of Irish politicians try to take advantage of the Kennedy wave and like find ways to connect themselves? An effort to maybe capitalize on that incredible excitement for this figure? I feel like as I watched the archives, it seems like everybody wanted to make sure that they got a picture with President Kennedy. At mayor level, whatever political level, if they could just get up on stage and be in the background, like that was something that was valuable.
MARION CASEY: Yeah I think the greatest thing is it was very heavily male-dominated, all the ceremonies. And the Lord Mayor of Limerick really wanted in on it and she was a woman. And she had every legitimate right, because on John F. Kennedy's mother's side, the Fitzgeralds were from rough County Limerick. So she made sure that she got an extra stop added in on his way out of the country. So in that sense, yeah, it was-- I'm not sure that it did her--
MATT PORTER: Huge gain.
MARION CASEY: Had any traction for her politically, but certainly it reminded everybody that there are women in the country and also that he was Irish on his mother's side and from a different part of Ireland. But the thing about-- the emphasis on the Kennedys and Wexford is because of John Barry, who's-- Kennedy was a Naval man, and one of the founders of the United States Navy is Commodore John Barry, so and Barry was from Wexford.
So it's natural that the orientation shifted there, but it's very nice that Rose Fitzgerald's side was acknowledged on that trip before he left. And I think also, the symbolism of what the gifts that were given is really telling. Limerick, that we've just been talking about, Limerick gave Kennedy a 14th century treaty between the Earl of Ormond and the O'Kennedys, which basically settled the terms of their disputes, which included pillage and murder and stuff like that in the 14th century.
But that's a precious document of Irish history. And in return, Kennedy presents to Ireland a precious talisman, if you will, of Irish America, which is the Battle Flag of the 69th Regiment New York State Militia.
MATT PORTER: Oh, that's real interesting. So as we start to move now connecting this to the current times, the first thing is, do you think there was a difference, forever change between the Irish-American relationship prior to Kennedy his election and then after? Do you think it was so significant that there's a before-Kennedy time and an after-Kennedy time that can be seen?
MARION CASEY: Do you mean in Ireland or in America?
MATT PORTER: In Ireland. Was the relationship between the two countries different before Kennedy and after Kennedy?
MARION CASEY: Yes. And Kennedy helps remove a international political stain that Ireland acquired during the Second World War when it chose to stay neutral and not allow American or British forces to use some of their ports. So there was some bad blood floating around in that Atlantic relationship.
Kennedy basically tells Ireland that-- he's on his way back from Berlin where he gave that historic speech, and he tells Ireland that even though they're small, that they have a role to play in Europe and in the Atlantic alliance. So it opens the door. He also, before his death, sets up the-- I think it's the American Ireland Fund, which was to strengthen the bonds-- the cultural bonds between Ireland and America. So an exchange of artists and visiting scholars and that type of thing. So that was very helpful, too. And that continues to this day. A very important philanthropic initiative that has just grown and very important for Ireland and the United States.
Yes. The other thing that Kennedy-- Kennedy's legacy is that now-- since then, almost every president-- probably every president-- has visited Ireland. Nixon goes, Bush goes, Reagan, Clinton. Clinton goes multiple times because he's involved in the Northern Ireland peace process. George W. Bush, Barack Obama went, and President Trump went.
MATT PORTER: You mentioned now with Biden being the second Irish Catholic president, apparently President Biden wrote you and the students at Glucksman House at NYU a letter, and I think you want to read a little bit about for us?
MARION CASEY: Yes. We were very honored to receive-- just under a month after his inauguration last year in 2021, he wrote this, and I'll just read a couple of paragraphs from it.
"Dear friends, I write to you as a descendant of the Blewitts from County Mayo and the Finnegans of County Louth. Of an Irish-American family that imbued in me a sense of pride that spoke of both continents, a heart and soul that drew from old and new, a pride in community, faith, and above all, family.
"All these years later, I write to you from a White House designed by an Irish hand in a nation where Irish blood was spilled in revolution for independence and in preservation of the Union. And the bridge between the two nations goes back and forth, growing wider and more necessary with every year that passes. linked in memory and imagination, and joined by our histories, we are nostalgic for the future. So it was then, so it is now.
"And to the students of Glucksman Ireland House, I look forward to working with you as well. You are part of one of the most gifted, tolerant, and talented generations ever. As your ancestors were before you, be at once dreamers and realists; compassionate, yet demanding; embrace our interdependence; and be sustained by a spirit of resilience, peace, and possibility. This is your time to write the next great chapter of two great nations and two great friends. Sincerely, Joe Biden. PS, the son of Catherine Eugenia Finnegan."
MATT PORTER: Oh, that's really nice. And listening to that, I want to just say like-- and you can respond to this. But Biden, like President Kennedy, illustrates the Irish diaspora, the Irish Americans here in a certain way. He mentions their hardworking nature. And he also doesn't forget in this letter that you just read to note the Irish sacrifices that have been made.
MARION CASEY: Mm-hmm.
MATT PORTER: Just-- why don't you-- can you reflect a little bit about like why he wrote it the way he did? Because it feels very similar to the way Kennedy spoke 60 years ago.
MARION CASEY: Yeah, it is. Kennedy in his speech to the Oireachtas when he presented the flag of the Fighting 69th talked about sacrifices especially during the American Civil War. And I do think it's acknowledging the role of immigrants in the United States, which is very important, which is contributions and patriotism.
It has been a long theme in Irish-American history that you could be loyal to the United States as well as loyal to Ireland. That the two positions are not irreconcilable. And I think he's pointing to that.
MATT PORTER: And you mentioned this peace process that happened with Clinton. Would America have had the same role or standing with Ireland had those foundations not started with Kennedy for Clinton to be able to play that role 30 years later?
MARION CASEY: I mean, I think it's very interesting Kennedy does not go to Northern Ireland in '63. He just visits the Republic of Ireland. And it's a very tense time because the 1950s, there's a campaign in Ireland to remove the border. So he doesn't politicize his visit in those-- because of those issues between Britain and Ireland. He steers clear of it.
But yes, I think that certainly the interest-- having an American president with an Irish heritage is potential political leverage for Ireland in their relationship with Great Britain during the '80s especially and '90s.
MATT PORTER: And today, there are so many Irish immigrants you can point to that are in positions of power here in Boston. Marty Walsh, now the Secretary of Labor. President Joe Biden is an obvious example right now. If you go across the United States, you find Irish leadership in political roles, CEOs, private, public, non-governmental. Does that still have-- give Ireland a pride that there are so many successful Irish immigrants over here? And to add, what do you think both sides hope for the relationship going forward?
MARION CASEY: I think that there has been a sea change in Irish America since the '60s. It is less predictably an ethnic voting bloc that is reliably Democratic. It's far more 50-50 the split between Republican and Democratic. And that also reflects different values, and in many respects, contemporary Ireland is far more progressive than contemporary Irish America, be it Democrat or Republican. They've kind of--
MATT PORTER: Flipped.
MARION CASEY: On a different-- they've gone in different-- yeah, they've gone in different realms.
MATT PORTER: Because as you mentioned at the beginning of this, when JFK was visiting Ireland in 1960, the people who were left who had an emigrated were a much more conservative population, and maybe you could say in America, at least, you have more Democrats among the Irish than you did Republican during the '60s. And now you're saying that that's a bit flipped.
MARION CASEY: Mm-hmm. But also in the election of 1960, you can't say that every Irish-American voted for John F. Kennedy. He had great support among the first generation, the immigrant generation who had arrived in the '50s and maybe in the 1920s, but for those who are third, fourth, fifth generation and have assimilated and acculturated, a lot of them were beginning to vote Republican from-- So it's under Eisenhower you begin to see a little bit of a tilt towards the Republican Party, and then then-- and now it's basically a 50/50 split.
MATT PORTER: So what do you think both countries can hope for the relationship going forward?
MARION CASEY: It'll be very interesting given Brexit. And it's unknown, really. I think the bonds of friendship between Ireland and the United States will continue. The Irish government of-- the Republic of Ireland is very intent on fostering artistic and cultural exchanges, encouraging Americans to visit Ireland. And I think that will continue very robustly into the future.
On a political level, it really depends on what happens with-- we have some tense situations with NATO and-- there are factors at play like in the United Nations. Ireland just sat on the Security Council last year. And we'll have to see what develops with Brexit, because Brexit affects the border on the island of Ireland.
MATT PORTER: That will be a challenge for whichever president is in office.
MARION CASEY: Whichever president is in office, yeah. Because that has the potential to be quite combustible if it's not handled carefully.
MATT PORTER: Indeed. And the last question I want to mention comes from an anecdote that-- I don't know if you've heard, but my family is Irish, my grandparents were children of Irish immigrants. And the joke between Irish Americans or even people in Ireland after Kennedy was elected president is that most Irish people have three framed photos portraits, which is they have one of the pope, one of Jesus Christ, and one of John F. Kennedy.
So that symbolizes the strength of the Irish connection in the '60s. Do the middle age and younger age Irish citizens who were never alive during Kennedy's presidency, do you think they still have that same affection, that strong affection that is emblematic by that little anecdote?
MARION CASEY: We would first have to say it's-- when you say Jesus Christ, it's particularly at the Sacred Heart.
MATT PORTER: Yes.
MARION CASEY: Yes, the Sacred Heart. So you have the pope, the Sacred Heart, and John F. Kennedy. No, I think popular culture has begun to obscure Kennedy for the contemporary young people. If you ask them the first person that comes to mind when they hear the word Irish, it is now one of the Irish boxers, maybe, or one of the Irish golfers, it's not John F. Kennedy.
MATT PORTER: He's lost that air of celebrity he had in the '60s.
MARION CASEY: Well, a lot of time has passed. And young people, they get connected to Irish in very different ways, and it's not through politics anymore.
MATT PORTER: Well, despite that, you still believe the Irish-American relationship will remain very strong from the foundations?
MARION CASEY: Yeah. I think there is interest. I see it in the students who enroll in my classes. They're interested in Ireland. It's what we call late generation ethnicity. After several-- they get curious about why their name is Sullivan or why their grandparents were the children of immigrants. What does that mean? What does it mean?
Ireland-- Irish has been so heavily commercialized that it's reduced to this--
MATT PORTER: Caricature.
MARION CASEY: Yeah. Really irrelevant. But the history is quite rich, and some people do come back to it that way. And I do think that from-- in that strand, will help shore up the relationship between the two islands-- sorry, the two nations. Yeah, it's not all lost. It's not all lost at all.
MATT PORTER: Well, Professor Casey, thank you for taking some time to talk to us today. It was really enlightening to learn a little bit more about the Irish side of things. Over here at the Kennedy Library, we certainly know the administration side of the story, but really nice to get a little more context of that visit.
MARION CASEY: You're very welcome. You're very welcome, Matt, it's a pleasure.
MATT PORTER: If you are interested in learning more about President Kennedy's trip to Ireland, you can visit our podcast page at jfklibrary.org/jfk35. On the page, we'll include links to photos, audio, and video from the trip. If you have questions or story ideas, email us at jfk35pod@jfkfoundation.org, or tweet at us @JFKLibrary using the hashtag #JFK35. If you liked what you heard today, please consider subscribing to our podcast or leaving us a review wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for listening, and have a great day.
[THEME MUSIC PLAYING]