Galway Advertiser 2003/2003_11_20/GA_2011_E1_037.pdf 

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November 20 2003

Galway Advertiser

N E W S 37

The end of Camelot
FORTY years ago this Saturday, the world was numbed by the assassination of John F Kennedy. For Galway people who had met him just months beforehand, the impact was doubly devastating. This week JO LAVELLE spoke to some local celebrities to find out how they heard.
Des Kenny of Kenny's bookshop says that although very young at the time, he remembers the event being like a dark pall which swept over the country. He listened to the unfolding events with his parents. "We didn't have TV in our house. We heard it on the radio. Everyone was walking around in a daze. It was almost as if your big brother had died. It was quite extraordinary the shock and horror that this could happen. It was disturbing. I was very shaken and just couldn't understand why. He was idolised. An Irish man who made it to the top. JFK was the epitome of all that was good, one big great hero. He won the hearts of Ireland." John Mulholland was in college at the time. He was in a flat with friends on Merchant's Road and was listening to the radio. "I ran home. We had a TV in the bar of the Hilltop Hotel, which my parents owned at the time. We watched the events unfolding. It was like a death in the family for most people. Even more so than Princess Diana. He was like a member of the family who went to America and who had done good "A young guy, the first Irish man, a Catholic in the USA who made it to the top. He was a huge hero, an idol in all our eyes. We took him into our hearts. He was the real icon of the 60s in Irish minds the greatest of them all." Mayor of Galway, Terry O'Flaherty recalled "I was walking down Tone Avenue in Mervue at about 6 o'clock. When I arrived at the house for tea, my grandmother told me. It had just come on the radio. I remember feeling very sad and lonely. He had only been in Galway months before. People were shocked. We had a grocery shop in Mervue at the time and everyone who came into the shop was talking about it. It really was the talk of the whole place. I've always thought if he had lived, the great things he would have done." Peadar O'Dowd, local historian and author also has profound memories. "I was sitting in the kitchen with my mother and father when it came out over the radio. No one could believe it; everyone was in a state of shock. We looked on him as a son of our own. People used to say that there were more Galwegians in Boston than in Galway. I thought it was dreadful that such a

President John F Kennedy pictured as he sat down for his last meal just hours before he was assassinated in Dallas.

fine leader at the time could be snuffed out like that, wiped off the face of the earth. It was shattering. Not alone was he the American president but he was ours. He was taken to our hearts. He was one of our own, leading the most important country in the world." Michael D. Higgins was a student at the time. "There was a great feeling of shock. I was in university and it wasn't long after the introduction of television. People were very affected by the grief of Jackie Kennedy and the image of her bloodstained clothes. "A lot had been debated about an Irish American Catholic becoming president and people were very interested in him and his family. " Dolores Keane, singer and songwriter was only a child but remembers it vividly. "I was ten at the time and I remember watching the whole event on the television. I was living in my aunt's house and we all watched it together, my grandmother and grandfather and my uncles. "When we heard the news, there wasn't a dry eye in the household. He had a connection with Ireland and it was something we held fast to. The people of Ireland held JFK in great regard. He was a great man," she said. Rector of St Nicholas's Collegiate Church, Reverend Patrick Towers saw it as the end of an era. "I was in a place called the Capris Restaurant in Eyre Street, off Piccadilly Circus in London. I was having an Italian meal

and was served by a waiter called Julian. The news came over in the restaurant and the whole place halted. Everyone stopped talking. I was shocked. I took the tube back to Bethnal Green Station and watched the events on the TV with some friends of mine in St. Margaret's Hostel in Bethnal Green. I went back to that restaurant many times, discussing the events with Julian. "It was like the end of an era. Up to then it had been a very optimistic time. We were casting off the war years; we were lively students, living near Carnaby Street, in the middle of it all. It was a great time. Suddenly it felt like the end of an era," he said. Well known chef, Frank Moynihan was in the Rockwell Hotel School in Cashel in Tipperary when he heard the news. "I was studying and a priest came in and told us. There was an unbelievable dumbfoundedness. It was just amazing ^ the silence and helplessness that descended on everybody. We were shocked that it could happen. There was a national sorrow. "Being as Irish as he was, he had Ireland's best interests at heart. He was a genuine and very meaningful man, a fantastic orator. His speeches were very heartrending and heart-warming. Anyone who listened to him would be bound to feel a connection with him," he said. Former RTE broadcaster, Lelia Doolan was working in RTE as a freelancer at the time. "As I was

passing through the master control room, I saw the news flash that Kennedy had been shot. We didn't think he was going to die. Later the news came that he was unsaveable. I had a sense of, oh heavens. `Because of his visit a

few months before and my involvement in covering the visit, there was a sense that he wouldn't be killed. My first feeling was one of disbelief. "The emotive feelings escalated because of the international sense

through the media of engagement with this character, this Camelot, this presence. He was a very glamorous figure and there was a sense that he was a star. For people watching the events on TV, there was this amaz-

ing performance out of a huge tragedy and shocking attack." Chick Gillen, of Chick the Barbers was working in Seapoint when he heard. "We got word and we didn't run the dance the night. The next night we'd a minute's silence, Seapoint was packed and there were about 1800 or 1900 people in the hall and there wasn't a boo out of anybody for the minute's silence. "It was awful sad. A couple of months before that he brought so much glamour to Galway and shook hands with everyone. When he was in the Square he said `I can see the Irish working on the Boston docks from here.' "I met him. I was in my barbershop and I went out to meet him. He was awful nice, a very good-looking man with copper hair and a great smile, a real jolly smile, not one of these politician smiles. It was a great a day as when as when the pope came. He had a proper hand shake too, not one of those buttery handshakes. He was just like a fella coming back from a good final. It was worth living through those times."