What happens when the US president comes to visit Ireland?
Clockwise: Former US presidents John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, and Barack Obama on visits to Ireland over the years; current US president Joe Biden, who's the next White House occupant to visit the country next week.
When President Joe Biden touches down in Ireland next week, he will be the latest in a string of US leaders to visit the old sod.
Here to celebrate 25 years of relative peace in Northern Ireland, Biden is expected to take time out to visit ancestral homes and landmarks in both Mayo and Louth, thus following in a tradition started by the first Irish-American president, John F. Kennedy.
No doubt the current president will be invited to sup a few pints of stout, to meet and greet a cousin or two and for those few days before and after his trip, these tiny towns will be abuzz with excitement.
But what happens when it’s all over and how have towns that welcomed presidents of the past dealt with what is left behind?
Just a few months before his assassination in 1963, John F Kennedy came to New Ross.
Local tour guide and historian, Myles Courtney, was ten when the 35th president lit up the streets of the small Wexford town.
“There was a real sense of occasion around the whole thing,” says Myles. “There were helicopters flying all over the place which wasn’t very common back then and there was a great buzz around.
“It was more of a homecoming than a presidential visit. The speech itself was informal. There were signs around the town welcoming JFK home, the brass band was out in force and people were hanging out of windows, but it was informal.”
During his famous speech, which you can still read on the bronze podium erected to mark the occasion, Kennedy joked about how if his great-grandfather had not left he might have been working in the local Albatros factory across the river or the local pub across the road. He later visited the ancestral home in Dunganstown where platters of sandwiches and endless pots of tea were provided for the visiting dignitaries. Breweries were yet to get in on the act.
Though Kennedy’s visit lasted only a few hours the impact on the whole area was enormous.
“The town had a huge sense of pride,” says Myles. “New Ross in the 1960s wasn’t particularly affluent. Industry-wise it was hanging in there. There was a lot of emigration. So it gave the town a bit of a lift. It put New Ross on the map to a much greater extent. We had many claims to fame up to then, but this was much bigger. The Kennedy Homestead became something of a cottage industry after that and it’s still going.”
According to Myles, in the years following JFK’s visit, the town’s economic fortunes suffered further. The Ross Company Shipyard “went wallop” and other well-known local employers soon followed suit. To stop the rot, the local Lions Club came up with a plan to get New Ross back on its feet.
“Tourism was the way to get some prosperity back,” says Myles. “The hook of the plan was the Kennedys and emigration. They were the poster boys of Irish emigration at the time. Later, the Famine Ship and Dunbrody Visitor Centre grew out of that.” Though he admits that the allure of the famous surname is dwindling a little, Myles says that one of his most popular walks is the Kennedy Footsteps Tour, which focuses on that story of emigration from the town and its environs.
“I bring people along the same route that Patrick Kennedy took to his work as a cooper in Cherry’s Brewery every day before his leaving in 1848,” says Myles. “We always make a stop at the statue of Kennedy. It is very rare that someone isn't standing there shaking his hand. It’s funny but when I have Americans on the tour, many of them take the opportunity to pose with the statue. But others don’t bother.”
Despite some visitors’ reluctance to engage with him, the spirit of JFK remains strong in New Ross. His visit in 1963 has served the town well and will continue to do so for years to come.
Twenty-one years later, Ballyporeen played host to another famous Irish American son, Ronald Reagan.
During his visit, Reagan paid his respects to his ancestors at the Templetenny Cemetery before sampling a pint of Smithwicks in the recently renamed Ronald Reagan Bar.
“I had a part-time job in the bar at the time,” says local Fine Gael councillor Maire Murphy.
“There was a major security presence in the lead-up to his visit. All the roads were blocked off for a mile and a half or two miles outside Ballyporeen and if you wanted to get there you had to walk.
“I remember there were a number of us working in the pub the day of his visit and we had to stay overnight the night before. On the day itself, we were all standing outside when he arrived. He was only a few yards away from me. He seemed very happy to be there. I can remember himself and Nancy were surrounded by security personnel but they were smiling.”
In the lead up to the visit, Marie recalls the town getting some new payphones, pavements were fixed that were somewhat bockety “and work that may have taken a much longer time to get done, got done fairly quickly”.
“It created great employment in and around that time,” recalls Marie.
“There were an awful lot of visitors before his visit and even more so in the months after. In terms of legacy, you have a brilliant community council there now and there is still a strong community there. I think it was a good thing for the town, certainly for the couple of years afterwards. Of course today, you can say the name Ballyporeen anywhere and people know it.”
The same is true of nearby Moneygall which hosted Barack Obama on a blustery morning in 2011.
“To be honest, we didn’t get that much time to prepare,” says local pub owner, Ollie Hayes. “He announced that he was coming to see his ancestral home on March 17th and arrived on May 21st. It only gave us a few weeks.”
Shortly after the announcement, Ollie, along with other locals, formed the Moneygall Development Association. They got to work fast. The village was given a good clean-up, roads and paths were fixed and Dulux went as far as giving the whole village a new lick of paint.
“It was brilliant meeting him,” says Ollie, whose pub hosted something of a hooley for the visitors.
“Michelle pulled a pint. They were in the pub there for about forty minutes and of course, everyone remembers him walking the streets from bottom to top shaking as many hands as he could.”
For the next five years, Moneygall welcomed busloads of visitors eager to see the town that gave the surname O’Bama to the world. In time, however, interest waned and visitor numbers declined.
“The visit brought the village together,” says Ollie. “We had an American festival every year for a few years and we got a few grants around that. There was a new playground and a new astroturf pitch put in and that probably came off the back of the visit.
“I knew from what had happened in Ballyporeen that it would eventually filter out. We were happy to return to normal. It is still a lovely place and my pub is still going well. We get the odd stag or hen party that comes in, so the legacy has lasted but it has died down. It was a lovely experience.”
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