JFK – his Irish roots

In the year that the new President of the United States, Donald Trump, takes office in the White House, we take a stroll down memory lane to remember a previous president, celebrated for his Irish heritage but whose tenure was tragically cut short when he was assassinated in Dallas, Texas on November 22, 1963. That President was of course, John Fitzgerald Kennedy.

My thanks go to Alan and Jayne Kavanagh of Droitwich for putting me on the trail of the Kennedy family’s roots in Ireland. During a recent conversation I enquired of Alan’s own Irish roots and he told me that his father Kevin, like so many others of his generation had come to England in the 1950s. He had married Muriel and they settled down and brought up four sons, Alan, John, Gary and Jason in Kingstanding, Birmingham.

Kevin Kavanagh originally came from Waterford so we talked about Alan’s own memories and knowledge of his dad’s family in Ireland, the Kavanaghs of Waterford and it was during this conversation that Alan told me “someone in the family said we were related to John F Kennedy”. I sensed that Alan may have thought no more of this than it being a family myth, though as we discussed the geographical proximity of Waterford city to the famed Kennedy cottage just over the border in Wexford, the possibility of a connection seemed worthy of serious consideration.

Since watching the recent episode of Who Do You Think You Are? in which Danny Dyer traced his family tree back to Edward III, I would not dismiss any such claim lightly, especially in Ireland which has such a strong oral history tradition and a much lower population than the UK, so the probability of connections with famous people is higher.

Shortly after my conversation with Alan and Jayne, I briefly met Alan’s dad Kevin Kavanagh who is now 80 years old and still cutting the fine figure of a strapping Waterford man. He still lives in Birmingham with his lovely wife Norma. I talked to them about Waterford and Kevin’s memories of his childhood. He told me that he and his brothers were such a handful that every summer their parents packed each of them off to stay with relatives in different parts of Ireland, just to keep them apart and minimise the trouble they got up to.

In the 1950s Kevin came to England on his way to New Zealand where he intended to make a new life. He was only intending to get a visa and jump on a flight or a boat but ended up staying longer than intended, finding work in the UK and marrying his first wife Muriel. Subsequently Kevin never made it to New Zealand and has lived in Birmingham ever since. We also talked about the connections of the Kavanagh family of Waterford to the Wexford ancestors of John F Kennedy, Kevin does not know the exact line but has a nephew who has researched it. Himself and Norma have visited the Kennedy Homestead museum at Dunganstown.

Kevin also told me about his grandparents, John and Anastasia who ran a bar and grocery shop on Merchants Quay in Waterford. The couple are found with their large family in the 1911 census of Ireland – John gives his place of birth as Kilkenny and Statia (Anastasia) said she was born in Wexford (both county borders are very close to Waterford). We might begin to speculate that it was Anastasia’s family who were related to the Kennedy family – though there is still research to be done to confirm the connection.

John Fitzgerald (Jack) Kennedy, commonly known by his initials JFK was the 35^th U.S. President from January 1961 until his death almost two years later. During that time Kennedy became one of the most popular U.S. presidents in American history and his death shocked the whole world and made such an impact on the global consciousness that people still ask to this day “where were you when you heard that Kennedy had been shot?”

But the grief and shock waves of JFK’s assassination were felt particularly powerfully in Ireland, not just because of the Irish heritage of the Kennedy family or because he was the first and only Roman Catholic president but because his four day visit to Ireland in June 1963 with its speeches, crowds and celebratory passion was still fresh in everyone’s minds. In June 1963, Kennedy had been like the prodigal son returning home from the diaspora, the Irish people had welcomed him and fallen in love with both him and his beautiful wife Jackie. Just six months later, his bright candle had been cruelly snuffed out.  

 

 

When Kennedy visited Wexford in 1963 he made clear the pride he had of his Irish roots. At his ancestral home in Dunganstown he was greeted by a huge crowd waving both Irish and American flags and was serenaded by a choir singing “The Boys of Wexford.” Whilst at Dunganstown, Kennedy met members of his extended Irish family at the Kennedy homestead and famously took tea outside the family cottage.

Kennedy’s great-grandfather, Patrick Kennedy was born at Dunganstown in 1823 and migrated to the U.S., arriving in Boston in 1848. The Kennedy family quickly made their mark on business and politics in America and through their marriages with other influential American-Irish families such as the Hickey and Fitzgerald families became one of the most powerful and well-known dynasties in the States. 

In future editions of The Harp I hope to return to the story of Kennedy’s roots in Ireland and confirm the connection of local Birmingham family the Kavanaghs. Do you have connections or memories of President Kennedy in Ireland? Please get in touch and tell us your story.