John F. Kennedy, visited my home town Cork, during his trip to Ireland in 1963. This is a photo that popped up on the “Cork” tag Flickr stream last night and I had to blog it.
Different times, he’s completely exposed to the crowd. Patrick Street is thronged with people. They’re practically hanging out the windows trying to catch a glimpse of him. If anyone wanted to take a pot-shot at him it would have been simple to do so but at the time the country was swept up in a tide of pride and joy. “Kennedy had near-legendary status in Ireland, as the first person of Irish heritage to have a position of world power.”
This was only a few months before his assassination in Dallas later that year in November. The Wikipedia page on him has a paragraph dedicated to the visit, and links to this article from the BBC archives.
Image hosted at Flickr.
Brilliant photo and looks like it could have been taken this year!
When did you take this? 1963? You’re ‘avin a laugh, as we jokingly say over here.
Those were the happy days when youngins would go to Cork maybe once a year or less if they lived in the countryside and just for important stuff like buying their confirmation suit or some other thing.
the whole street looks so much nicer back then – now its like any other clonetown high street imported from England.