John F. Kennedy was the great-grandson of Irish immigrants and the first and only Irish-Catholic American elected as President of the United States.
John Fitzgerald Kennedy, America’s first Irish-Catholic president, was the offspring of two families whose roots stretched back to Ireland.
The Fitzgerald family was from western Ireland in the rural County Limerick village of Bruff. Sometime between 1846 and 1855 some of the Fitzgeralds migrated to America because of the devastating potato famine. Thomas Fitzgerald, born in Bruff in 1823, and Rose Anna Cox, born in County Cavan in 1835 were the parents of John Francis Fitzgerald, who was born in Boston, MA on February 11, 1863. On September 18, 1889, John Francis (“Honey Fitz”) Fitzgerald married Mary Josephine Hannon of Acton, MA, daughter of Michael Hannon and Mary Ann Fitzgerald, both of whom were born in Ireland. Their daughter, and John F. Kennedy’s mother, Rose Elizabeth Fitzgerald, was born on July 22, 1890 in Boston, MA.
During the same period that the Fitzgeralds migrated to America, Patrick Kennedy, a cooper, left his ancestral home in Dunganstown, County Wexford and sailed from New Ross for the United States. In 1849 he married Bridget Murphy [born about 1827 in Owenduff, County Wexford] in East Boston. Nine years later she was a widow with four small children, the youngest of whom, Patrick Joseph Kennedy, would become John F. Kennedy’s grandfather. In November, 1887, Patrick Joseph (“P.J.”) Kennedy married Mary Augusta Hickey, daughter of James Hickey of Cork, Ireland, and Margaret M. Field, also of Ireland. Their son, and John F. Kennedy’s father, Joseph Patrick Kennedy, was born on September 6, 1888 in East Boston.
The Fitzgeralds and Kennedys lived and worked in Boston, seeking to take advantage of the economic opportunity offered in America. But, first, they had to overcome the harsh, widespread discrimination against Irish- Catholic immigrants at that time. The early Kennedys and Fitzgeralds worked as peddlers, coopers and common laborers; later they became clerks, tavern owners and retailers. By the end of the century, Patrick “P.J.” Kennedy and John “Honey Fitz” Fitzgerald, the president’s maternal grandfather, had become successful Boston politicians, with Honey Fitz serving twice as Mayor of Boston and as a Member of the U.S. Congress.
John Fitzgerald Kennedy relished his Irish heritage.
During President Kennedy’s historic visit to Ireland in June 1963, he remarked to the people of New Ross, Ireland:
“When my great grandfather left here to become a cooper in East Boston, he carried nothing with him except two things: a strong religious faith and a strong desire for liberty. I am glad to say that all of his great-grandchildren have valued that inheritance.”
On display in the Museum is the Fitzgerald family bible brought from Ireland by President Kennedy’s forebears. A clerk of the U.S. Supreme Court held the large bible as John Fitzgerald Kennedy took his oath of office as 35th President of the United States on January 20, 1961. The Bible is an 1850 Edition of the Douay English translation containing a handwritten chronicle of the Fitzgerald family from 1857 and including a record of the birth of John Fitzgerald Kennedy on May 29, 1917.
In the Museum’s Oval Office exhibit is a fragment of a pennant flown on the Raleigh, a ship commanded by John Barry, a founder of the U.S. Navy and former commander of the USS Constitution. Barry, who served during the Revolutionary War as one of the first captains of the Constitutional Navy, was born in County Wexford, Ireland, the ancestral home of President Kennedy. President Kennedy displayed the pennant in the White House Oval Office, and during his visit to Wexford, Ireland on June 27, 1963, placed a wreath at the John Barry statue.
Film footage of President Kennedy’s visit to Ireland is featured prominently in the Museum, including the president’s remarks at Eyre Square in Galway on June 29, 1963 after receiving the Freedom of the City.