Ted Kennedy, Irish-American History Buff

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Ted Kennedy and family photographed in 2004.

Photo by Courtesy of Independence National History Park

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I told the senator how my interest in the Revolution had begun in Boston, with my book on Bunker Hill. I added how amazed I had been to discover that there were some 400 Irish Americans at Bunker Hill. Until I made this discovery, I had thought of the Revolution as a struggle between two groups of Englishmen.  I added that my four grandparents were born in Ireland. “Now I know I’ve found the right guy!”  Ted said.

A month later, I met Caroline Kennedy and her three children in  Philadelphia’s 30th Street Station. We chatted for an hour or so about their interest in American history while waiting for the other Kennedys to arrive on a bus from Washington, D.C. I had read the collection of great American speeches that Caroline had edited — a superb piece of historical research, with vivid prose on every page. Several of the best speeches were by her Uncle Ted.

The senator and his wife soon arrived, along with the senator’s two sisters Eunice and Jean, and Ethel Kennedy with many of her grandchildren. We toured Independence Hall while I told stories about the Continental Congress and their struggle to find the courage to declare independence. I gave stumpy, eloquent John Adams credit for supplying a lot of  that courage. I portrayed a Thomas Jefferson so anxious about his wife’s refusal to answer his letters that he almost went home and abandoned his rendezvous with history. I told how Jefferson’s great manifesto was read to the people on July 9, 1776 in the yard of the Philadelphia State House by Colonel John Nixon, son of Irish-born Richard Nixon.

I could see that the name Nixon made Senator Kennedy uneasy. “Tom,” he said. “Maybe you should point out those were good Nixons.”  Though we were deep in the 18th century, the senator was still the senior spokesman of the Democratic Party.

We had lunch at the City Tavern, another historic site. Before the food was served I gave a talk, “Yankee Doodle with a Brogue,” about the Irish in the American Revolution. Everyone was amazed and delighted to learn that an estimated thirty-three percent of George Washington’s army was Irish. I told them about Commodore John Barry, “father of the American Navy,” who was from County Wexford.

I discussed at length one of my favorite characters, Charles Thomson, the secretary of the Continental Congress and close friend of Ben Franklin. Born in County Derry, Thomson was known as “the Sam Adams of Philadelphia.”

When Parliament passed its first attempt to tax the Americans, the Stamp Act of 1765, a discouraged Franklin wrote Thomson from London that “the sun of liberty is set, and Americans must light the lamps of industry and economy.”

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