Almost exactly 40 years since she accompanied her brother - the then US President John F. Kennedy - on a visit to New Ross, the founder and honorary chairwoman of the Special Olympics, Ms Eunice Kennedy Shriver, returned to the Co Wexford town yesterday.
It was also in June 1963 that Ms Shriver started a summer day camp for children and adults with learning disability at her home in Maryland, to explore their capabilities in sports and physical activities. The concept of the Special Olympics emerged from that camp. Ms Shriver (82) - who continues to campaign for the betterment of those with intellectual disabilities - met members of the Guatemalan Special Olympics team who are staying in the town this week.
Recalling her 1963 visit, she told local public representatives and officials of her brother's pride. "How proud he was to be the first American President to visit Ireland while in office. He was also proud to be honoured in Wexford . . . He was planning a return visit but unfortunately it was never to be. Of all the countries he visited none equalled Ireland."
Complimenting the Irish organisers of the Special Olympics World Games, Ms Shriver said they displayed a "can do" spirit and rather than asking "why" asked "why not".
She also suggested that foundations laid now should be built on. "It is the work of Government officials to make change. It is the work of community groups and local agencies to get a legislator to intervene for their cause; for people, families and communities to get together and advocate change."
The executive vice president of the Joseph P. Kennedy Jnr Foundation was also honoured at a civic reception hosted by the chairperson of New Ross Town Council, Cllr Michael Sheehan.
A choir from St Joseph's girls national school delivered a rousing rendition of the Martin Luther King oration I Had A Dream as Ms Shriver arrived with Dorothy Tubridy, a friend of the family from Kilkenny who helped to attract the Special Olympics movement to Ireland.
Ms Shriver was presented with a specially commissioned gold neck chain featuring the New Ross coat-of-arms.
Cllr Sheehan recalled her visit with her brother: "Forty years ago our most famous son came home to Ireland and New Ross. With his spirited call for community service, civic renewal and hopeful idealism throughout his career, John F. Kennedy showed us the path and the way to a better life."
Wishing all Special Olympics athletes well, he said a life-sized statue of President Kennedy is to be commissioned on the quayside site from which he addressed the townspeople 40 years ago.
"I hope this statue will serve as a reminder to us of his call for civic renewal and your message of a better, more tolerant society as we move ahead in the 21st century," he told Ms Shriver.
She recalled how her great-grandfather Patrick Kennedy, a cooper, had left Dunganstown near New Ross in 1848 in the hope of a better life in Boston.
Ms Shriver is due to be joined in Ireland by her husband Mr Sargent Shriver, chairman of the board of Special Olympics and a former US Ambassador to France - their son Dr Timothy P. Shriver - who is president and chief executive of Special Olympics International.