50th anniversary of visit by Charles de Gaulle to be marked in Co Kerry

The 50th anniversary of Charles de Gaulle’s unannounced visit to Ireland will be remembered in Co Kerry today.  Within days of resigning as president of France in 1969, de Gaulle and his wife Yvonne decided to take time out in Ireland.

The Irish Government at the time had been unaware of the visit until he arrived in the village of Sneem on May 10. Staff at the Heron Cove Hotel in the village, in May 1969, initially thought that, with all the secrecy, the unknown visitor was to have been the Pope.