JF Kennedy's 'hugely significant' 1963 visit remembered

America: When Senator Edward Kennedy addressed a rally of illegal Irish immigrants and their supporters in Washington last month, he recalled being pressed to watch over and over again a film of his brother President John F. Kennedy's 1963 visit to Ireland.

The president, he said, could not see the film often enough and as the youngest member of the family, the future senator represented a captive audience.

"A Journey Home - John F. Kennedy and Ireland", a new exhibition at the John F. Kennedy presidential library in Boston, explores the late president's relationship with Ireland, focusing on the three-day visit in June 1963, which he described as one of the most moving experiences of his life.

Kennedy had visited his family's ancestral farm in Dunganstown, Co Wexford, as a young congressman in 1947 but curator Frank Rigg believes that returning as president was a hugely significant event for him.

"You can see it in the photos and the film. You can see it in the expression on his face. Obviously the crowd is reaching out to him but you can see he's reaching back. And in his speeches, he speaks very movingly about Ireland, both in terms of what Irish people have contributed to the United States and about Ireland in 1963 and what a great example Ireland was for small democracies," he says.

The visit was originally due to last just one day, jammed between trips to Berlin and to the Vatican for a meeting with the newly consecrated Pope Paul VI. Two weeks earlier, in one of the defining moments of his presidency, Kennedy had confronted segregationist Alabama governor George Wallace over the admission of two black students to a state university.

A visit to the permanent exhibition at the library, a magnificent waterside building designed by IM Pei, places the Irish trip within the context of some of the most momentous days of Kennedy's short presidency.

"The timing was very interesting because June 26th, 1963, was the day he travelled to Dublin. That morning, he was speaking in West Berlin. That was the morning he delivered the famous "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech and got such a tumultuous reception there.

"So here he was, in this triumphant moment as the leader of the western world and he flies into Dublin, the great-grandson of eight people from Ireland," says Riggs.

The exhibition features letters and gifts presented to Kennedy in Ireland, as well as photographs and film footage of the visit that show the extraordinary reception he received in Dublin, Cork, Limerick, New Ross and elsewhere as he criss-crossed the country by helicopter.

"This is not the land of my birth but it is the land for which I hold the greatest affection," he declared in Limerick.

Kennedy was clearly affected by the emotional welcome he received in Ireland, remarking before he left: "You send us home with gifts, which we can barely carry, but most of all you send us home with the warmest memories of you and your country."

Riggs maintains, however, that Kennedy's Irish visit was more than just a sentimental journey and that the young president found a soulmate in Ireland's modernising taoiseach, Seán Lemass.

"I think there was substance to it. Clearly, it was a very joyful three days and for him it was a sentimental journey and I think for the people in Ireland there was great sentiment. But I do think that if you look at the speeches that he gave, it's clear that he had thought about Ireland and Ireland's role in the world of that day."

The visit had a profound effect on a generation of Irish people, but Riggs believes it also had an important impact on the American perception of Ireland, alerting millions of Kennedy's compatriots to the fact that Ireland was a country with a future as well as an unhappy past.

"This in a way put Ireland on the map. Ireland had sort of been on the sidelines. This drew Ireland into the mainstream.

"To hear Kennedy speak about his pride in his Irish ancestry was a wonderful revelation," Riggs says.

The exhibition, A Journey Home - John F Kennedy in Ireland, runs until February 28th, 2007.