Senior Kennedy Family Member Among Host of Interesting Speakers.
This year is the 30th anniversary of the death of Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy (mother of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy), and the fourth annual Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Autumn School (RFKAS) in Bruff, Co. Limerick, and will feature an address by her grand-daughter, Kathleen Kennedy Townsend. It will take place in the Thomas Fitzgerald Centre in the town on the October Bank Holiday weekend (October 24-26) .
This year is also the 100th anniversary of the birth of Robert F. Kennedy (Kathleen’s father), who was Attorney General in his brother’s Administration (1961-1964), and who was assassinated in June 1968 when he was campaigning for the Democratic Party nomination in that year’s US Presidential election.
The town of Bruff and nearby Lough Gur have extraordinary links with America’s Fitzgerald Kennedy Political Dynasty. Three of the four grandparents of Rose came from the Bruff/Lough Gur area, and they emigrated to Boston in the 1850s post-Famine exodus from Ireland.
The Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Autumn School (RFKAS) was established by members of the community in Bruff and Lough Gur to memorialise the Fitzgerald Kennedy links with their area and other places in Co. Limerick, and this year’s gathering is the fourth annual event. The local RFKAS Committee includes a number of Fitzgerald cousins of the family.
Director of the School, Declan Hehir said :
“As well as celebrating the ancestral links to the Fitzgerald Kennedy family, and the remarkable life and legacy of Rose Fitzgerald (she died at age 105 in 1995, and played a key role in the political success of her husband, Joe Kennedy, and their children, President Kennedy, Attorney General Robert Kennedy and Sen. Ted Kennedy), another focus of the Autumn School is telling the story of other trailblazing Irish women, from Co. Limerick and elsewhere, whose achievements have often been neglected”.
The organisers have also put together a detailed programme for Kathleen Kennedy Townsend (who was the first-born grandchild of Rose), including viewing ancestral family records in the local Catholic Church, walking to the site of an ancestral family home, and to the graveyard where her forebears are buried.
She will speak at the opening session of the Autumn School on Friday, October 24th, along with American historian, Barbara Perry, author of Rose Kennedy: The Life and Times of a Political Matriarch, and many other books about US political families. The session will conclude with a discussion with the two women conducted by RTÉ broadcaster, Marty Morrissey.
On the Saturday evening (October 25th), there will be a session on the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, with a particular focus on the role of women in the Peace Process. The panellists are Liz O’Donnell (Minister in the Irish Government Negotiating Team), Professor Monica McWilliams (Co-Leader of Women’s Coalition Team) and Dr. Tim O'Connor (Senior Official in Irish Government Negotiating Team in 1998). The Moderator is Irish Independent political analyst, John Downing.
Another session, on Saturday afternoon, will explore the impact of America on Irish female identity in a talk by Dr Bernadette Whelan (Emeritus Professor at the Department of History in the University of Limerick). The experiences of Irish nurses working in Britain’s NHS will be explored in a discussion featuring Prof. Louise Ryan and Grainne McPolin, co-authors of the book Irish Nurses in the NHS, an Oral History. The Moderator is Deirdre O’Shaughnessy (Opinion Editor at the Irish Examiner).
Other weekend events will include a local folklore project at Lough Gur on the “Magic of Lough Gur”, which will be moderated by Brian Collopy, manager of the local Visitor Centre, and this event will also feature a performance by the City of Limerick Marching Band.
Kathleen Kennedy Townsend is due to attend a special Mass on Sunday morning at Patrickswell Church, Lough Gur, and this will be followed by a Fitzgerald Community Breakfast in the nearby Honey Fitz Theatre.
On the Sunday afternoon, Dr. Scott Lucas of the Clinton Institute at University College Dublin and another US politics expert, Dr Gary O’Brien, Vice-President of Mary Immaculate College, Limerick, will explore “the Trump Effect” one year on from the US Presidential election.
The weekend autumn school will conclude with a concert in the Thomas Fitzgerald Centre on Sunday evening, featuring the Bruff Branch of Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann, and closing remarks by the school director, Declan Hehir.
For further information, contact:
• Declan Hehir, 087 8301574
• Stephen O’Byrnes, 087 8148720