Connacht Tribune
Memories of JFK’s visit a stark contrast to opinions on modern-day US
The day that President Kennedy came to Galway in 1963 is fondly remembered, and as the years go by there is a tendency to remember it as a sunny day for Galwegians.
But in truth it was an unseasonably cold day, and the waves of Irish school children that greeted the president’s helicopter at the sports ground on the College Road were more shivering than shimmering.
BY GERARD DOHERTY
As the motorcade was about to set off for Eyre Square, an ambitious young local photographer muscled his way in for a shot, drawing the attention of Secret Service agents who moved toward him like a threat.
In what would be an especially poignant moment, knowing now what would happen in Dallas just five months later, President Kennedy intervened, asking his security to back off, to let the photographer do his job.
“He’s a friend,” the president said of the stranger from Ireland.
It said a lot about Jack Kennedy, about the way he viewed people not just from Ireland, but from other countries in general. They weren’t strangers to be feared; they were friends not yet made.
As the great-grandchild of Irish immigrants, President Kennedy understood intuitively the way the Irish had come to America with little and gave and gained a lot. He was living proof that, given opportunities, immigrants from any and all countries, from any and all religious backgrounds, could rise and prosper in America. That was the compact that America made with its immigrants, and it always paid dividends.
President Kennedy made his bones as a politician the old fashioned way, with shoe leather. I was just a teenager the day he walked into my house in Charlestown in 1946, during a lull in Boston’s annual Bunker Hill Day parade. He was running for the seat in Congress formerly occupied by James Michael Curley, the quintessential Boston Irish pol. Curley, whose father left Oughterard for Boston, served four terms as mayor, three terms in Congress, one term as governor, and one term in the federal penitentiary.
Like Curley, Kennedy knew his power derived from the people, that to obtain power you needed to have a genuine mandate from the people, and to obtain that mandate you had to make a genuine effort to meet those people.
Jack Kennedy knew the people because he talked to them. And he respected them, because he saw in their struggle the struggle of his own forbears who left Ireland with little more than dreams.
“If the day was clear enough, and if you went down to the bay, and you looked west, and your sight was good enough, you would see Boston, Massachusetts,” President Kennedy told the crowd at Eyre Square 55 years ago. “And if you did, you would see down working on the docks there some Dohertys and Flahertys and Ryans and cousins of yours who have gone to Boston and made good.”
At that point, the president asked if anybody in the crowd had family in America.
Just about every hand in Eyre Square went up.
“I don’t know what it is about you that causes me to think that nearly everybody in Boston comes from Galway,” President Kennedy said. “They are not shy about it, at all.”
That wasn’t hyperbole. When running for Congress and later the Senate, President Kennedy would have pressed the flesh all over the greater Boston area and he would come to realize that what seemed like half of Rosmuc had relocated to South Boston.
The president concluded his remarks that day with words that stand in stark contrast to the message coming out of the White House these days.
“If you ever come to America,” he said, “come to Washington and tell them, if they wonder who you are at the gate, that you come from Galway. The word will be out and when you do, it will be Céad Míle Fáilte.”
If one of Galway’s sons or daughters arrived at the White House today and told anyone at the gate they were from Ireland, they might be locked up. The presumption, the official position of the Trump administration, is that every immigrant who shows up on America’s shores is there to take advantage not of the opportunity but of the American taxpayer.
Immigrants have been demonized, with xenophobic language and sentiment that flies in the face of the American experience, families separated in scenes that conjure fascist, inhumane regimes.
The empirical evidence suggests immigrants, on the whole, remain essential to the United States. Immigrants continue to be the backbone of our economy. Without them, food would rot in our fields. Hospital corridors would be unclean. Hotel beds would be unmade. Our elderly and infirm would have no minders.
But beyond the more modest jobs that first-generation immigrants fill, there is that promise, the one the Kennedys fulfilled, of rising, generation by generation, from the corridors of hospitals to the corridors of power, in boardrooms, in situation rooms.
President Trump has insulted and dehumanized immigrants of many cultures. He has instituted policies in which hard-working, tax-paying undocumented immigrants are rounded up while criminals who mostly victimize immigrant communities are too often conveniently ignored. And he has the cheek to dismiss so-called chain immigration as wrongheaded when his own family benefited from it.
Unfortunately, his demonization of immigrants resonates with a sizable minority of Americans, the same ones who voted for him in the first place. There has always been a nativist streak in American culture, one that ebbs and flows, and it has been on the rise, not just with Trump and his minions but in many European countries as well.
Nativists purposely and cynically ignore history. History tells us President Kennedy was right to look at a stranger, some young photographer from Galway, and assume he was a friend, not an unwanted interloper. And history tells us the great majority of Americans aspire to be more like President Kennedy than like President Trump.
■ Gerard Doherty spoke at the Kennedy Summer School in New Ross. He is a former aide to President Kennedy, Senator Robert Kennedy and Senator Edward Kennedy and the author of “They Were My Friends: Jack, Bob and Ted.
Significant state investment is required to address ‘shocking’ inequalities that leave cancer patients in the West at greater risk of succumbing to the disease.
A meeting of Regional Health Forum West heard that survival rates for breast, lung and colorectal cancers than the national average, and with the most deprived quintile of the population, the West’s residents faced poorer outcomes from a cancer diagnosis.
For breast cancer patients, the five-year survival rate was 80% in the West versus 85% nationally; for lung cancer patients it was 16.7% in the west against a 19.5% national survival rate; and in the West’s colorectal cancer patients, there was a 62.6% survival rate where the national average was 63.1%.
These startling statistics were provided in answer to a question from Ballinasloe-based Cllr Evelyn Parsons (Ind) who said it was yet another reminder that cancer treatment infrastructure in the West was in dire need of improvement.
“The situation is pretty stark. In the Western Regional Health Forum area, we have the highest incidence of deprivation and the highest health inequalities because of that – we have the highest incidences of cancer nationally because of that,” said Cllr Parsons, who is also a general practitioner.
In details provided by CEO of Saolta Health Care Group, which operates Galway’s hospitals, it was stated that a number of factors were impacting on patient outcomes.
Get the full story in this week’s Connacht Tribune, on sale in shops now, or you can download the digital edition from www.connachttribune.ie. You can also download our Connacht Tribune App from Apple’s App Store or get the Android Version from Google Play.
Galway 3-18
Cork 1-10
NEW setting; new opposition; new challenge. It made no difference to the Galway minor hurlers as they chalked up a remarkable sixth consecutive double digits championship victory at Semple Stadium on Saturday.
The final scoreline in Thurles may have been a little harsh on Cork, but there was no doubting Galway’s overall superiority in setting up only a second-ever All-Ireland showdown against Clare at the same venue on Sunday week.
Having claimed an historic Leinster title the previous weekend, Galway took a while to get going against the Rebels and also endured their first period in a match in which they were heavily outscored, but still the boys in maroon roll on.
Beating a decent Cork outfit by 14 points sums up how formidable Galway are. No team has managed to lay a glove on them so far, and though Clare might ask them questions other challengers haven’t, they are going to have to find significant improvement on their semi-final win over 14-man Kilkenny to pull off a final upset.
Galway just aren’t winning their matches; they are overpowering the teams which have stood in their way. Their level of consistency is admirable for young players starting off on the inter-county journey, while the team’s temperament appears to be bombproof, no matter what is thrown at them.
Having romped through Leinster, Galway should have been a bit rattled by being only level (0-4 each) after 20 minutes and being a little fortunate not to have been behind; or when Cork stormed out of the blocks at the start of the second half by hitting 1-4 to just a solitary point in reply, but there was never any trace of panic in their ranks.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
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GARDAÍ and the IFA have issued a joint appeal to all road users to take extra care as the silage season gets under way across the country.
Silage harvesting started in many parts of Galway last week – and over the coming month, the sight of tractors and trailers on rural roads will be getting far more frequent.
Inspector Conor Madden, who is in charge of Galway Roads Policing, told the Farming Tribune that a bit of extra care and common-sense from all road users would go a long way towards preventing serious collisions on roads this summer.
“One thing I would ask farmers and contractors to consider is to try and get more experienced drivers working for them.
“Tractors have got faster and bigger – and they are also towing heavy loads of silage – so care and experience are a great help in terms of accident prevention,” Inspector Madden told the Farming Tribune.
He said that tractor drivers should always be aware of traffic building up behind them and to pull in and let these vehicles pass, where it was safe to do so.
“By the same token, other road users should always exercise extra care; drive that bit slower; and ‘pull in’ that bit more, when meeting tractors and heavy machinery.
“We all want to see everyone enjoying a safe summer on our roads – that extra bit of care, and consideration for other roads users can make a huge difference,” said Conor Madden.
He also advised motorists and tractor drivers to be acutely aware of pedestrians and cyclists on the roads during the summer season when more people would be out walking and cycling on the roads.
The IFA has also joined in on the road safety appeal with Galway IFA Farm Family and Social Affairs Chair Teresa Roche asking all road users to exercise that extra bit of care and caution.
“We are renewing our annual appeal for motorists to be on the look out for tractors, trailers and other agricultural machinery exiting from fields and farmyards,” she said.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
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Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
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The Connacht Tribune Live app is the home of everything that is happening in Galway City and county. It’s completely FREE and features all the latest news, sport and information on what’s on in your area. Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
Families queue up for school’s offer of free house
West has lower cancer survival rates than rest
Galway minors continue to lay waste to all opponents
Gardaí and IFA issue a joint appeal on summer road safety
Marathon Man plans to call a halt – but not before he hits 160 races
