Tag Archives: John F Kennedy

THE DEATH of the last surviving member of the Kennedy family has evoked memories of the time she opened a well known cultural festival in Killaloe. Jean Kennedy Smith, the last surviving sibling of President John F. Kennedy and a former United States of America ambassador to Ireland, who died last week, officially launched Féile Brian Ború in the mid nineties. Ms Smith was the eighth of nine children born to Joseph P and Rose Kennedy, and she tragically outlived several of them by decades. Her siblings included older brother Joseph Kennedy Junior, killed in action during the Second World War; Kathleen “Kick’ Kennedy, who died in a 1948 plane crash; the president, assassinated in 1963 and Senator Robert F. Kennedy, murdered in 1968. Senator Edward Kennedy, the youngest of the Kennedy siblings, died of brain cancer in August 2009, the same month their sister Eunice Kennedy Shriver died. Michael Durack, who was involved with the Killaloe Writers, presented the …

A PHOTOGRAPHIC exhibition capturing some of the golden moments and world famous faces that visited Shannon Airport has just opened. Closing the curtain on a year of celebrations to mark the 70th anniversary of the first commercial transatlantic flight into Shannon, or any land-based Irish airport, some 64 images, dating from the 1950s up to now, have been placed in a permanent exhibition on the walls of the airport’s transit lounge. The exhibition, which was officially launched by Shannon Group chairman Rose Hynes, reflects the international standing of Shannon as a global aviation crossroads as it includes some of the world’s best known personalities of politics, stage, screen and sport. Famous faces and events captured in the exhibition include every US president from presidents John F Kennedy to Barack Obama; other global political and religious leaders such as Nelson Mandela, President Mikhail Gorbachev, Chinese President Xi Jinping, Cuban President Fidel Castrol, Pope John Paul II and the Dali Lama. Shannon Group CEO, …