US Secretary of State John Kerry Comments on President Kennedy's Historic Visit to Ireland Fifty Years Ago

President Kennedy in Ireland, 1963

(Photo Courtesy of JFK Library) 

 

John Kerry, US Secretary of State, has published his reflections of President John F. Kennedy's historic visit to Ireland in June 1963.  In an essay titled The Legacy of JFK: Reflections on the 50th Anniversary of His Visit to Ireland, Secretary Kerry remarked on "the spirit and idealism of the Kennedy years" and what that meant to his generation growing up in the Cold War era.

"I particularly remember watching the news on a little black and white television set as America’s first Catholic President returned to the land of his heritage to celebrate a moment of pride on both sides of the Atlantic and a remarkable reminder that the United States was a nation of immigrants focused on the future but deeply proud of its roots," Kerry says.

This past week, Caroline Kennedy and her family returned to Ireland to retrace her father's visit fifty years ago, stopping in New Ross, County Wexford, from where the Kennedy family originated, and Bruff, County Limerick, where the Fitzgeralds came from.

For more information on President Kennedy, visit the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library & Museum, located in Boston, Massachusetts.