THE world of 1963 was significantly different to the world we inhabit today. Here at home, Terence O'Neil was elected Prime Minister and began to seek reforms that were once unthinkable. Beatlemania began to take hold. One man stood in defiance of the law and proudly proclaimed, "I have a dream".
On June 26, Air Force One touched down at Dublin Airport and its occupant commenced a four day visit to Ireland.
During his rousing address to the Joint Houses of the Oireachtas, President Kennedy praised the contributions of the young Irish State to global affairs and inspired Irish people with a new confidence in our ability to play a key role on the international stage.#JFK60 pic.twitter.com/sWVc6hQKvH
— Irish Foreign Ministry (@dfatirl) June 28, 2023
This was no mere State Visit, but rather a homecoming. The occupant was a man whose very initials would one day be synonymous with images of hope, promise and indeed tragedy. The man was President John F Kennedy.
The significance of President Kennedy's visit to Ireland in June 1963 cannot be overstated, and nor can his assassination five short months later. President Kennedy was the 14th American President to claim Irish ancestry and yet he was only the first to come home while in office. This visit marked the first visit by a sitting President to our shores. This visit was only a century after the end of An Gorta Mór. It was the first visit of a United States President since partition.
With the air of athleticism, dazzling smile and wavy hair, President Kennedy became the standard bearer of a new generation of leaders that inspired hope, strength and courage in the hearts of those he touched.
When he spoke in Dáil Éireann, these words inspired hope, strength and courage in a new generation of Irish political leaders. He spoke of how Ireland had much to teach larger nations of the world: particularly in how we live out our virtues of openness and welcome.
His words on Irish military neutrality might even seem radical to some today. He spoke to the suffering we had endured and our continued desire for self determination. We would not sit by the fireside while others were in need of our help. What a resounding affirmation for the fledgling State.
Not just a Statesman but a man of the people, he took to his ancestral ground and went to meet his distant cousins.
When his life was taken by a coward's bullet on the November 22 1963, the hope, strength and courage he inspired did not die. If anything, his death inspired an entirely new generation to live and lead with gentleness and compassion, and not the bullet. His example continues to inspire even today.
Right across our nation's soil, there are lasting memorials to President John F Kennedy, and rightly so. However, perhaps the time has come for a lasting memorial to come home to our island's centre of government as a reminder of where we have come from and just how far the Irish people have progressed.
While John Donne may have said no man is an island, to that I would add: Ireland is more than an island. President Kennedy spoke highly of Ireland's place in the United Nations as means of peacekeeping. These words could reverberate today for us in the north as our place in the European Union is one many of us seek to reclaim.
Ultimately, as an island nation (partitioned as we are), we are more than the geographical end points of this shared home place, whether from Derry to Dingle, Bantry to Belfast or New Ross to Newcastle. There are many of us who have never wavered on our place in Europe. For many of us, we did not need to be convinced of the EU as a peace-building initiative. We have always known that Ireland's place in the world must extend beyond our shores.
Why? Because we are Irish, and Ireland has always been a nation of builders. We are a people who have worked the land and moulded it. While other nations were young, we built Newgrange, churches, and stone walls. We were the centre of history's greatest educational system.
As a people, we have so often been forced to leave our own shores, and carry our story – our desire to build – on our backs and build a home elsewhere. So it was for the Fitzgeralds and Kennedys in the 1800s and countless other families. Even to this day. sadly, a new generation of Irish children make a new home in Australia.
We Irish have built nations. We were the architects and labourers that made America. In running for the Presidency in 2020, Joe Biden sought to reclaim the 'soul of America', which was so diminished and tainted through his predecessor. That soul has long been tied to our own. The bond we share is one which we must strengthen. How fitting it is that the current United States Special Envoy to Northern Ireland is the great nephew of President Kennedy.
However, in giving so much of ourselves to the world, there remains one nation which we who remain have yet to finish – this one. The time has come to strengthen our spines, to work the land once more and get to building.
In spite of oppression, famine, suppression and even civil war, what we Irish have always done is endure. President Kennedy spoke to the better angels of our nature, and these are the ones that endure to this day. Our better angels are the ones people remember, cherish and celebrate. Not those who sow seeds of division, fear and mistrust.
President Kennedy closed his comments in Dáil Éireann with the following words which echo still today: "I believe profoundly in the future of Ireland, that this is an isle of destiny, that that destiny will be glorious and that, when our hour is come, we will have something to give to the world."
What do the next 60 years hold for our island nation? Who are the standard bearers of hope, strength and courage today? These are questions for our new generation of leaders: be they political, civic or business.
Perhaps, just perhaps, if we find our resolve once more, if we find our compassion and gentleness, in 60 years time what we will give to the world will be a country of our own, a New Ireland: reconciled, united and at peace.
