US presidential election central to Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Autumn School in Limerick

THE ROSE Fitzgerald Kennedy Autumn School (RFKAS) is returning for its third year ahead of the US presidential election.

Expert US political commentators and eminent academics, Professor Scott Lucas of the Clinton Institute at University College Dublin, and Larry Donnelly, of the University of Galway Law School will be among the guest speakers at the event.

The school will run in Bruff and nearby Lough Gur from Friday, October 25 to Sunday, October 27.

Just ten days before the presidential election on November 5, their session on Saturday afternoon at 4pm is certain to be hugely popular in a town which has “extraordinary” links to US politics.

Three of the four grandparents of President John F Kennedy’s mother, Rose Fitzgerald, came from the Bruff area, before emigrating to Boston in the 1850s post-Famine exodus from Ireland.

This is the third year of the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Autumn School, which was established by members of the Bruff community to memorialise the Fitzgerald Kennedy links with Bruff and Co Limerick.

The committee also includes a number of cousins of the famous Fitzgerald Kennedy political dynasty.

The director of the school, Declan Hehir, said that, as well as celebrating the ancestral links to the Fitzgerald Kennedy family, the school is also about exploring and celebrating “the history and culture of Bruff and Co Limerick, down the years, and exploring themes that chime with the remarkable Rose Fitzgerald herself”.

Rose Fitzgerald, who died aged 105 in 1995, played a key role in the political successes of her husband, Joe Kennedy, the US Ambassador to the United Kingdom in the 1930s, and their children, including President Kennedy, Attorney General Robert Kennedy and Senator Ted Kennedy”.

The opening session on Friday night, October 25, features a panel of female journalists who hail from the region, including Bruff native Maureen Browne; Limerick Leader editor, Aine Fitzgerald; Gillian Devlin, head of news at Live95 FM, and Susan Daly, managing editor of the Journal.ie. 

The moderator is Kathryn Hayes, course director of BA in Journalism and Digital Communication at the University of Limerick.

This event "echoes the remarkable resilience of Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy". 

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On Saturday morning, Lough Gur Visitor Centre will host an exciting arts exhibition, Inspirations, curated by local artist John Carew.  

The exhibition will feature 32 new pieces of work created by sixteen local creative people - four artists, four writers, four crafts people, and four photographers. 

On Saturday evening, October 26, there will be a screening of the famous 1973 RTÉ Radharc Documentary interview with Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy.

As well as this, former director of the National Museum, Dr Pat Wallace, will chat to local Fitzgerald family relatives, Eileen McMahon and Christina Fitzgerald, about their recollections of their Fitzgerald Kennedy family ties.

Also on Saturday, another session will focus on Reflections on Irish Emigration and Diaspora Experience. 

The speakers will be Dr Susan Halvey, TUS, on Charlotte Grace O’Brien; Prof Sean Connolly, Queen’s University Belfast, on his book on Irish Emigration, On Every Tide, and Michael Dooley, poet.

On Sunday afternoon there will be a parade led by the City of Limerick Marching Band, and it will also feature some vintage cars, including one used for the visit of President Kennedy to Ireland in 1963. 

The weekend’s events will conclude with a concert performance by the Bruff Branch of Comhaltas Ceoltoiri Eireann.

Commenting on the significance of the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Autumn School, Tim O’Connor, one of the members of the organising committee, who was national chair of the Advisory Board of the Gathering Project in 2013, said: “Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy’s roots – and therefore those of her family - lie in the Bruff area. Hosting this Autumn School in her memory is an act of custodianship on our part and we undertake that act gladly as a sign of how much we value our relationship with our Diaspora, who have been such supporters of Ireland around the world and through the generations.

“In thanking Limerick City and County Council, led by Mayor Moran, for their support, we are excited by the potential of this relationship between the Home Place and those who left, including in tourism and economic terms, and look forward to working with the Mayor and his Team at the Council, with Discover Limerick, and with the entire community in the Bruff/Lough Gur area in developing the Autumn School as part of that Strategy into the future.” 

Full details of the autumn school can be found at www.rosefitzgeraldkennedyautumnschool.ie

Tickets to attend any of the sessions cost €10, with a discounted fee of €5 per session senior citizens, while students and children go free. 

Tickets are available online at Eventbrite. 

For further information, contact Declan Hehir at 087 8301574, or Stephen O’Byrnes at 087 8148720