John Fitzgerald Kennedy, America’s first Irish-Catholic president, was a son of two families whose roots stretched back to Ireland.
The Fitzgerald family was from the rural County Limerick village of Bruff in western Ireland. Between 1846 and 1855, some of the Fitzgeralds migrated to Americato escape the devastating potato famine.
During the same period that the Fitzgeralds migrated to America, Patrick Kennedy left his ancestral home in Dunganstown, County Wexford, and sailed for the United States.
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. Read More.
In honor of Irish American Heritage month and St. Patrick’s Day this weekend - some Kennedy family photos. Happy St. Patty’s Day!
JFK’s grandfathers, Joseph Patrick Kennedy and John “Honey Fitz” Fitzgerald”; JFK and Eunice Shriver with their Irish cousins at the Kennedy ancestral homestead, Ireland, 6/27/63.
Source: jfklibrary.org
