An Post 50th Anniversary of John F. Kennedy's Visit to Ireland

AN POST on 6 June 2013 issued two stamps to mark the 50th anniversary of John F. Kennedy's visit to Ireland. The stamps were designed by Steve Simpson.

The 60c stamp shows a photograph of President Kennedy being served tea by his cousin’s daughter, the later Mary Ann Ryan, in Dunganstown, just outside New Ross, Co Wexford.

The 90c stamp shows a photograph of president Kennedy and former taoiseach Sean Lemass laying a wreath at Arbour Hill in Dublin.

Also pictured with President Kennedy and Mr Lemass is the then Commandant P J Daly,  who went on to become brigadier general of the Defence Forces.

President Kennedy visited Ireland from 26 to 29  June 1963 and, in Dublin alone, half of the city’s population thronged the city centre in an attempt to catch a glimpse of him.

Elsewhere, 100,000 people travelled to see him in the cities of Cork, Limerick and Galway, while in Wexford the town’s 12,000-strong population swelled to 30,00 on 27 June, the day he visited the Kennedy Family’s ancestral home in Dunganstown.

For more information, see www.jfkhomecoming

Source: Irish Examiner