Join us at EPIC on December 12th as we assess JFK’s legacy with Historian Felix M Larkin. We’ll reflect on what the 35th US President’s untimely death meant to the Irish people at home and abroad.
November 22nd 2023 marks the 60th anniversary of the tragic assassination of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, only months after his historic visit to Ireland. JFK’s four-day visit strengthened ties between the two nations and ushered in a new era of optimism in a changing Ireland.
Many Irish people of a certain age can recall exactly where they were and what they were doing when they heard the news of the assassination. Such was the impact of that event. With the passage of time, however, Kennedy is gradually ceasing to be part of living memory – and becomes instead part of history. So now is perhaps an appropriate time to begin to ask in a serious way just how good a president was he?
Felix M Larkin is a historian and retired public servant. In 2019 he donated his considerable collection of books, magazines and other materials about John F. Kennedy and the Kennedy family to the Kennedy Book and Research Archive at New Ross Library. A Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, he was 12 years old in 1963 and has been fascinated by Kennedy ever since.
He has also written extensively about the history of the press in Ireland. He contributed essays to each of the three volumes of the recently published Edinburgh History of the British and Irish Press (2020 & 2023). With Mark O’Brien, he co-edited two volumes of essays on Periodicals and journalism in twentieth-century Ireland (2014 & 2021).