Search Results for 'John F. Kennedy'

What does anyone at twenty-one know about writing or anything else for that matter?

A New York City bar on Valentine’s Day 1974 brings together a remarkable cast of characters as Robert Patrick’s award-winning play Kennedy’s Children comes to the Mullingar Arts Centre on November 22. This will mark the 50th anniversary of the assassination of President John F Kennedy.

It lasted only an hour, but for a generation of Galwegians it was a momentous occasion, one that gave a city and a population emerging from the oppressive 1950s, a much needed boost of confidence. It was the day US president John F Kennedy came to visit.

Over the course of the next week, you will be regaled with anecdotes about the day the most famous man in the world came to Galway and how for one day, everything came to a standstill. And how the snapshots in our mind, whether they be colour or black and white were forever crystallised on those heady days and in the sad months that followed, as reality became legend and legend became myth.

Members of the Kennedy clan are to be invited to Galway next summer to take part in the celebrations honouring the 50th anniversary of the visit of President John F Kennedy to the city in June 1963.

Saturday, June 29, 1963 may have been dull and overcast, but the city of Galway presented a colourful spectacle amid scenes of unprecedented enthusiasm. It was covered in Tricolours and the Stars and Stripes, in bunting and banners, in windowboxes of flowers and newly painted buildings. There was a carnival atmosphere. Some 600 gardaí were up early, lining the streets ahead of the crowds that began to arrive from 7am. There were journalists here from all over the world to cover the event.

The visit of US president John F Kennedy to Ireland in June 1963, just five months before his assassination, and its impact on the nation, is explored in a new book by broadcaster Ryan Tubridy.