Donegal reaction to President John F Kennedy’s assassination 60 years ago

The assassination of President John F Kennedy still resonates in the minds of all who were alive at the time and bear witness to one of the greatest mysteries of the 20th century.

Two things copper fasten that fateful November day in the psyche of this country. 

One, of course, was his Irish and Catholic heritage and the fact that he wore the Irish green badge with much aplomb. The second, was that Kennedy had returned to the land of his forefathers and ancestors, a few months before his untimely death at just 46 years of age. In the age before social media, President Kennedy, his wife Jacqueline and young children also held celebrity status on a level that few would question today.       

The theories that abound as to what was the backdrop to his death, will no doubt be debated for decades to come, but it still bears the hallmarks of the greatest factual crime thriller ever recorded. 

The covering up and disappearance evidence, was Lee Harvey Oswald the shooter or fall guy and the apparent coincidence of Jack Ruby, appearing at the time, which some experts now say was a complete coincidence?    

The election took place on November 11, 1960. Prior to that in the Democrat edition of August 5, in his “An American Chronicle from New York”, contributor Shane Conway had said: “Vice President Nixon, the Republican candidate who will be his party’s contestant for the president of the United States in the general election in November, against Senator John F. Kennedy, his Democratic opponent, has a record as a fighter against Communism  which he is expected to continue if he is successful in the Presidential quest”.

(Above: JFK pictured with his daughter Caroline on the Honey Fitz in 1963, who is now the US Ambassador to Australia)

Well, as we know, Nixon was edged out by Kennedy, the former having to face his own political assassination, but not an assassin’s bullet  when he was forced to resign over the Watergate scandal. 

Strange Omen 

There was a very strange omen in the Donegal Democrat in its edition of January 20, 1961 which was reflecting on that very day, John F. Kennedy was to be inaugurated as 34th President of the U.S.A. 

Under the heading ‘Kennedy faces grim legend of U.S. Presidency’, contributor Brian Keogh wrote: “His spectacular progress from junior Senator from Massachusetts to the most powerful office in the world has been watched with great interest by every person in this country by reason of his strong Irish ancestry all his grandparents were Irish, and his forbears on his father's side sprang from the Ardara district of Donegal.”

But then the article veered off to recall a number of Presidents who were elected at the start of new decades that had been assassinated or died during their term, including Abraham Lincoln. He even pointed out that Lincoln’s successor was a Vice President Johnston .

The last sentence of the article proved ominous, as it was penned more than two and a half years before his death : “Is this the grim hand of fate? Or will Mr. Kennedy be the first President since 1840 to show that this is no more than coincidence. We hope so, but time alone will tell.”

North West mourns for President Kennedy

His death hit Donegal as badly as anywhere else, as it seemed that it was like a member of the family that had been taken from them. 

The lead in the following week’s edition of the paper stated that while the world “mourned, the tragic passing of President John F. Kennedy nowhere outside the U.S.A. was the grief so piercingly felt as in Ireland”.

“From the President down to the most humble in the country there has been a feeling of personal loss, of family bereavement”.

(Above: How the Democrat reported the reaction of President Kennedy's death in its first edition after he was shot)  

Ballyshannon tribute 

In Ballyshannon the townspeople paid a striking demonstration of respect when over 1,500 attended a special Requiem Mass celebrated in St, Patrick’s Church by Rev P. Deeney P.P.

All town and country schools were closed and accompanied by their teachers marched to the church. Practically every business house and firm suspended business for the duration of the Mass.

Moville

At Moville Rev D. McLaughlin officiated at a special Requiem Mass in the Church of St Pius X, for the repose of the soul of the late President.

Shops, offices and factories closed while Mass was being celebrated and the church was filled to capacity.

Glencolumbkille

In St Columba’s Church Cashel, the Mass at 8am on Monday morning was offered up for the repose of the President as had happened on the Sunday.

Reference was also made to Cadet PJ McMahon from Dromahaire, who was the class leader of the cadets who attended the ceremonies at Arlington cemetery and was well known in the Bundoran and Ballyshannon areas.

The monthly meeting of Donegal County Council was postponed as a mark of respect for President Kennedy.

On behalf of the people of Letterkenny, the Chair Patrick O’Donnell sent a cablegram to Mrs Kennedy conveying condolences. There were prayers recited by the Donegal County Amateur Boxing Board in Letterkenny, as were prayers at various Masses in St Eunan’s Cathedral. 

Fine Gael branch meetings in Ramelton, Dunfanaghy, Carndonagh and Castlefin were cancelled and even the Ballyshannon Fishery Board adjourned without conducting any business. 

Adjourning that meeting to the following weeks, its chairman J.F Cassidy “said the death of President Kennedy had saddened them all and they felt as if one of their own brothers or sisters had died”.  

At the AGM of the Ballybofey & Stranorlar Cumann Fianna Failcumann, Michael McGinty said that the ideals which the late President stood for, should be the ideals of them all.

Parliamentary Secretary Joe Brennan T.D. added that, “all our people were proud that the man in the White House was one of our own”. 

It was recalled that Dolores Bresling from Tullymore in Ardara had a letter from the president after she had congratulated him, in which he said that he “hoped to uphold the trust the people of the free world had placed in him”.

It had also been recalled that J. Nicholson, a native of Rosbeg on holidays from the United States had recalled an article in the Democrat that was handed to the then Senator Kennedy in Brooklyn, which had stated that “it was traditionally assumed that President Kennedy’s forbears came from Morganstown, three miles from Ardara and that he was one of the same Kennedys as the late Chief Justice Kennedy.

“Mr Kennedy observed that he was unaware of this family connection but that it was interesting to know that there were so many distinguished Kennedys and that he hoped one day to visit this area.”