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Home Page > News > John F Kennedy's speech to Irish parliament the greatest ever says Enda Kenny

John F Kennedy's speech to Irish parliament the greatest ever says Enda Kenny

Ireland's Prime Minister nominates Dublin speech as most powerful

JAMES O'SHEA,

IrishCentral Staff Writer

Published Monday, July 9, 2012, 8:21 AM

Updated Monday, July 9, 2012, 8:32 AM

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Portrait of President Kennedy aboard the "Honey Fitz", off Hyannis Port, Massachusetts.

Photo by Cecil Stoughton

Twenty-six sons of Ireland have died in the Congo; many others have been wounded. I pay tribute to them and to all of you for your commitment and dedication to world order. And their sacrifice reminds us all that we must not falter now.

The United Nations must be fully and fairly financed; its peace-keeping machinery must be strengthened; its institutions must be developed until some day, and perhaps some distant day, a world of law is achieved.

Ireland’s influence in the United Nations is far greater than your relative size. You have not hesitated to take the lead on such sensitive issues as the Kashmir dispute, and you sponsored that most vital resolution, adopted by the General Assembly, which opposed the spread of nuclear arms to any nation not now possessing them, urging an international agreement with inspection and control, and I pledge to you that the United States of America will do all in its power to achieve such an agreement and fulfil your resolution.

I speak of these matters today not because Ireland is unaware of its role, but I think it important that you know that we know what you have done, and I speak to remind the other small nations that they, too, can and must help build a world peace. They, too, as we all are, are dependent on the United Nations for security, for an equal chance to be heard, for progress towards a world made safe for diversity. The peace-keeping machinery of the United Nations cannot work without the help of the smaller nations, nations whose forces threaten no one and whose forces can thus help create a world in which no nation is threatened.

Great powers have their responsibilities and their burdens, but the smaller nations of the world must fulfil their obligations as well. A great Irish poet once wrote:” I believe profoundly in the future of Ireland, that this is an isle of destiny, that that destiny will be glorious, and that when our hour has come we will have something to give to the world.”

My friends, Ireland’s hour has come. You have something to give to the world, and that is a future of peace with freedom. Thank you."

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Seanmor | Jul 09, 2012, 08:14 PM EDT

Rebel: President Kennedy's speech to the Dáil was merely a reflection of the prevailing Partitionist policy among most members of that chamber at the time. Ironically JFK spoke of the Battle of Fredericksburch, one of the fiercest contests in the war that reunited the divided American nation and abolished slavery. Kennedy's Dáil speech was made at a time when Nationalists in the British-controlled part of Ireland were being treated as second class citizens and the victims of vicious discrimination.

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aloistmartin | Jul 09, 2012, 06:25 PM EDT

Dear God ! Is there No Slice of Toast Edna Kenny will not Butter !

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aloistmartin | Jul 09, 2012, 06:24 PM EDT

And Why Not ! The Kennedy` were every bit the Bourgeois Crook of Dublin`s Edna Kenny !

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Rebelforce | Jul 09, 2012, 06:19 PM EDT

The most conspicuous thing about President Kennedy's speech to the Irish Parliament was it's glaring ommission of any mention of the issue of the undemocratic partition of the island of Ireland. It should be remembered that in 1963 Northern Ireland was still very much a "Protestant State for a Protestant People" and Ireland was just six years away from the start of a bloody civil uprising that would convulse the North and leave over 3,000 people dead and tens of thousands more wounded. In historical retrospect, JFK's flowery talk about sending Irish soldiers to keep the peace in places like Congo and Gaza and ignoring the issue of Irish partition and the north sounds politically naive and clueless.

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MatthewJshow | Jul 09, 2012, 10:11 AM EDT

JFK stated "Ireland's influence in the United Nations is far greater than its relative size." This portion of the speech still resonates in today's world. JFK'S Dublin speech certainly ranks up there with some of his best. I look at this speech in detail on my podcast US/Irish relations at MatthewJshow.com-thanks

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Seanmor | Jul 09, 2012, 09:34 AM EDT

When President Kennedy addressed the Dáil in June of 1963, I heard part of his speech at the U.S. navy base in Subic Bay in the Philipinnes, where I was stationed as a corporal in the U.S. Marine Corps and was proud to serve under my Commander-in-Chief JFK. The Battle of Fredericksburg mentioned above was fought on 13 December, 62, not 13 September of that year. The Irish Brigade advanced to within 25 paces of the Confederate lines and many of them were shot by a Georgia unit that were also Irish. The America of the early 1860s was a divided nation as was the Ireland of Kennedy's time, also this present day. In all probality the Irishmen who fought on both sides in the American Civil War would never want their beloved homeland to be permanently partitioned.

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