JFK in Cork

28th June 1963

It is difficult now to imagine the hysteria generated in Cork at the visit of US President, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, on that balmy Friday morning in June 1963. Only two days earlier he had enraptured an audience of 450,000 Berliners with his iconic “Ich bin ein Berliner” (‘I am a Berliner’) speech at the infamous Wall, built by the Soviet Union to terrorise the citizens of Berlin, isolated deep inside East Germany.

Now he was coming to Cork: with his Boston drawl, his deep tan and flashing smile, his enormous motorcade of Cadilacs & Chevrolets, his FBI men in dark glasses running alongside his car, the world press corps with their huge TV cameras and arc lights – we had never seen anything like it before and the city was giddy with excitement.

I was still in secondary school and had a summer job in a photographic works up over Mayne’s Pharmacy in Pembroke Street (now a wine bar). Like every other establishment in the city, we had the morning off for the visit and I positioned myself, camera at the ready, at the junction of Wintrop Street & Patrick Street.

A helicopter would whisk him off into the skies and out of our lives forever

JFK’s itinerary for the visit to Cork was land by helicopter in Collins’ Barracks on the northside of the city, parade down Summerhill, along McCurtain Street, over Patrick’s Bridge, along Patrick’s Street, Grand Parade and the South Mall and over Brian Boro Bridge to the City Hall where he was to be conferred with the Freedom of the City by Lord Mayor, Sean Casey. Afterwards he was to proceed to Monaghan Road where a helicopter would whisk him off into the skies and out of our lives forever.

My plan was to photograph him as he passed along Patrick Street, then rush up Wintrop St. and Pembroke St. to the South Mall and grab some more photographs as he passed by on his way to City Hall. However, I hadn’t reckoned on the crowd being so excited and as JFK passed – within feet of me – there was a surge that lifted me off my feet and the moment was gone. No photograph!

I clambered up on a post box at the corner of Pembroke St. and had a bird’s eye view of JFK

I turned and sprinted up Wintrop St. to the South Mall and, determined that the crowd wouldn’t obstruct me again, I clambered up on a post box at the corner of Pembroke St. and had a bird’s eye view of JFK as the motorcade passed. The crowd then made for the City Hall where the Freedom of the City was to be bestowed. The Gardaí made valiant efforts to keep the area around City Hall cordoned off by placing a line of men across the entrance to Brian Boro Bridge but the good-natured crowd was having none of it. The guards were simply knocked aside like nine-pins and the crowd poured across the bridge like Moses & the Israelites crossing the Red Sea. In fairness, the Gardaí only made half-hearted efforts to stop them as they, too, were anxious to get close to the action.

Lapp’s Quay, across the river from the City hall, was thronged and a lonesome row-boat -with four men on board (security?) – stood sentry in the middle of the river, though what they were expecting to come upstream is anybody’s guess.

The Freedom ceremony over we followed the cavalcade down ‘The Boggie’ where an American military chopper was already warming up. With one final wave at the doorway the President was ushered on board, the engines roared into full throttle and John F. Kennedy ascended into heaven.

Five months later he visited Dallas.