President Kennedy's State Visit to Ireland, June 1963- 60th Anniversary
On June 26, 1963, Air Force One landed at Dublin Airport bearing President John Fitzgerald Kennedy from West Berlin where he had been triumphantly received as the leader of the Western alliance in the Cold War. His arrival was the culmination of a story begun over a century before as all of his great grandparents fleeing hunger and oppression sailed for a new life in America.
Kennedy had made visited the land of his forbears five times previously. But it was the four days he spent there in the summer of 1963, as the first Irish-Catholic and first sitting president of the United States to visit Ireland that meant the most to him.
President Kennedy was moved by the many honors bestowed upon him. But nothing meant more than the greetings from hundreds of thousands of Irish citizens who thronged around him everywhere in hopes of glimpsing JFK, or briefly clasping his hand, or simply welcoming him “home”.
For the Irish people Kennedy's visit prompted a joyful celebration. It affirmed Ireland's movement into the mainstream of the world community. Above all it brought the satisfaction of hearing the most famous living person of Irish descent tell the world of his pride in his Irish ancestry.
