JFK
In Ireland
FOUR DAYS THAT CHANGED A PRESIDENT
RYAN TUBRIDY
For Ella and Julia My little dotes
A letter from Jacqueline Kennedy to President de Valera, thanking him for attending her husband’s funeral.
The Irish tricolour comes alive for JFK as children from local schools dressed in orange, white and green rainwear rush to greet him in Galway.
Contents
CHAPTER ONE The Kennedys: From Poverty to Power
CHAPTER TWO The Kennedys Come Home, 1930s–1950s
CHAPTER THREE Wooing the President
CHAPTER FOUR Planning the Visit
CHAPTER FIVE The European Tour Begins
CHAPTER SIX Arriving in Dublin
CHAPTER FOURTEEN Leinster House
CHAPTER SIXTEEN The Last Supper
CHAPTER NINETEEN Shannon Airport
CHAPTER TWENTY The Road to Dallas
CHAPTER TWENTY–ONE JFK in Ireland: The Legacy
Badge of honour: three small children cheer JFK during his Irish visit.
Kenny O’Donnell, the President’s right–hand man was flabbergasted. “Ireland?” he said. “Mr. President, may I say something? There’s no reason for you to go to Ireland. It would be a waste of time. You’ve got all the Irish votes in this country that you’ll ever get. If you go to Ireland, people will say it’s just a pleasure trip.”
Nobody thought it was a good idea. Not the American media, not the presidential advisers, nobody. But President Kennedy had made up his mind and when O’Donnell went back to the President the following day to relay this message, Kennedy looked up at him from his newspaper “with an air of exasperated impatience”. “Kenny, let me remind you of something,” he said with a distinct air of finality and authority. “I am the President of the United States, not you. When I say I want to go to Ireland, it means that I’m going to Ireland. Make the arrangements.”1
It was meant to be a band–aid trip to key European allies, an attempt to show them that America cared as the Soviet beast breathed down their necks. Italy demanded a visit, Germany needed attention, England desired a distraction and France sulked. But there were bigger problems at play; Italy was between governments and there was an ailing Pope in the Vatican. In Germany, Chancellor Adenauer’s government was in disarray after the Der Spiegel affair. In England, Harold Macmillan was suffering through the extraordinary Profumo Affair, which saw his War Minister caught lying about his affair with a call–girl who happened to be sharing a bed with Russian naval attaché Eugene Ivanov. The thought of America’s glamorous young president popping over for tea was political manna for the electorally beleagured
