RARE artefacts from John F Kennedy’s 1963 visit to Ireland have been unveiled in Belfast as part of a new memorial exhibition on the assassinated US president.
A handwritten poem about the River Shannon, which Kennedy scribbled on the back of a diary schedule after hearing it recited by Sinead de Valera – the wife of Irish president Eamon – is among the collection going on display at Queen’s University.
A copy of the speech the iconic Irish-American delivered to the Dail on June 28, 1963, just five months just before he was shot dead in Dallas, is also being showcased in the university’s New Library.
Along with an assortment of photographs taken during the four-day state visit, they were transported from the John F Kennedy Library and Museum in Boston by its founder Dan Fenn, one of the 35th US President’s closest aides in the White House.
