The ‘ould enemy’ is a thing of the past

IN 1963, John F Kennedy, addressing the joint Houses of the Oireachtas, quoted the Fenian John Boyle O’Reilly: “The world is large when two loving hearts are separated, but the world is small when your enemy is loose on the far side.”

He then went on to say the enemy of John Boyle O’Reilly is no longer a hostile nation. Now perhaps, after nearly 50 years, with our invitation to Queen Elizabeth II to visit our independent country, we may have at last realised that Britain is no longer our enemy.

I would also like to point out, as the son of a Cork woman, that the city received its ‘Rebel’ name for its allegiance to the pretender of the British throne, Perkin Warbeck.