The Irish government and the Kennedy clan celebrated the 50th anniversary of one of Ireland's most fondly recalled moments, the visit of President John F Kennedy, with a daylong street party today being capped by the lighting of Ireland's own "eternal flame."
"JFK 50: The Homecoming" celebrations are focused on the County Wexford town of New Ross, from where Patrick Kennedy departed in 1848 at the height of Ireland's potato famine to resettle in Boston. In June 1963 his great-grandson John returned to the town as the United States' first and only Irish Catholic president.
During his four-day tour across Ireland, JFK so charmed the nation that, even decades later, his portrait adorns many living-room walls as the ultimate symbol of Irish success in America.
Prime Minister Enda Kenny is joining JFK's only surviving sibling, Jean Kennedy Smith, and his only surviving child, Caroline Kennedy, for concerts, a parade and a riverside ceremony featuring the Irish navy's delivery of a flame taken Tuesday from JFK's plot in Arlington Cemetery.
Kenny and the Kennedys also are rededicating the county's Kennedy Arboretum, planted following the president's November 1963 assassination, and opening a greatly expanded Kennedy Homestead visitor facility on the ancestral farm that one of JFK's third cousins, Patrick Grennan, still lives on today.
"We are so proud of our Irish heritage, and we draw so much strength and joy from connecting to Ireland," said a JFK niece, Kiki Kennedy, as she and several other family members visited the Dunbrody, a famine-era replica ship that has been docked since 2001 as a tourist attraction in New Ross. The town's flame will burn nearby that ship, a statue honoring JFK and a related emigrant "roll of honor."
Among those speaking or performing at today's event are Irish-American "Riverdance" star Michael Flatley, Irish tenor Michael Londra, and US folk singer Judy Collins, who performed in the White House for the Kennedys a half-century ago.
