A rare colour film of President Kennedy's 1963 Irish visit has been unearthed, writes Michael Parsons
A unique colour film of President John F Kennedy's visit to Ireland in June 1963 has been discovered by the Irish Film Institute (IFI). The 30-minute documentary, seen exclusively by The Irish Times, is the only colour footage known to exist apart from an official film made by White House staff. Kasandra O'Connell, head of archive at the IFI's Irish Film Archive, revealed that the unlabelled film, which had lain unnoticed in the vaults for several years, was discovered "some months ago". Staff immediately realised its rarity and immense historical value.
The film is currently being restored by the Signal Processing and Media Applications Group at Trinity College Dublin. A team led by Dr Anil Kokaram has developed groundbreaking automated digital restoration techniques which can detect and correct distortions in archived film.
Plans are already under way to ensure public access to what Mark Mulqueen, director of the IFI, describes as "arguably the best visual record of the legendary visit and the euphoria that surrounded it". The discovery is "the audio-visual equivalent of finding a Stone Age artefact", he says. The film may tour the country, especially those venues visited by President Kennedy, and eventually be broadcast on television and released on DVD. The IFI has also contacted the John F Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston about showing the film in the US.
RTÉ has extensive archives of the station's coverage of the visit, with commentary by fledgling broadcasters such as John Bowman and Terry Wogan. But all of this material is in black and white, as colour broadcasting was not developed until the 1970s.
THE FILM WAS part of a large collection donated to the IFI by the Irish Missionary Union, whose chairman, Fr Brendan MacHale, confirms that it had been produced by the Columban Fathers for "mission promotion purposes", to be shown at fundraising events for Irish-American audiences. The producer was the late Fr Gerry Smith, a Co Cavan-born missionary priest, who had studied film-making in the US and made a number of films about "the old country".
The documentary contains remarkable footage of the president's tour through counties Dublin, Wexford, Cork, Galway and Limerick, with huge, enthusiastic crowds in their "Sunday best" turning out to see the American leader wherever he went. There are key soundbites from his speeches, a fiercely proud commentary by an American narrator and a selection of traditional Irish airs.
The discovery will allow Irish audiences to see - for the first time in colour - highlights of a visit which created unprecedented scenes of public affection not witnessed again in Ireland until Pope John Paul II's visit in 1979.
An opening sequence in the film depicts a montage of Dublin newspapers published on the day of Kennedy's arrival. Curiously, The Irish Times is not among them, perhaps a reflection of the producer's "politics".
THE VIVID USE of colour casts a new perspective on images previously viewed only in monochrome, such as the president meeting Charles Haughey (then minister for justice and responsible for security during the visit) on the tarmac at Dublin Airport, or the tea party held in the ancestral home in Dunganstown, where JFK jokingly wondered if the salmon in the sandwiches had been poached illegally from the River Barrow.
Footage from Galway records meetings with an American Legion unit of Irish soldiers who had fought with the US army in the second World War, and crowds of children in green, white and orange being marshalled by nuns in splendid headgear.
The images from Cork show the president's interaction with surging crowds (unthinkable in today's paranoid security environment) and capture the moment when a well-wisher held on to Kennedy's hand a moment too long, causing him to topple on to the back-seat of the open-topped car in which he was standing (a premonition of more sinister events to come).
Eight-year-old Colm Tóibín was one of an estimated 50,000 people who gathered in Wexford town to see JFK on Thursday, June 27th 1963. The novelist recalled the day for The Irish Times 40 years later:
What was astonishing was the quality of his suntan. He was tanned a very deep brown, like he was in Technicolour with all the glamour which that implied, and the world around (and indeed our own skin) was black and white, or a more washed and primitive version of colour.
The release of this film will enable the Irish public to share those memories of JFK in colour for the first time.
Days to remember: JFK in Ireland
John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the Catholic, Democrat great-grandson of an Irish emigrant, was the first US head of state to visit Ireland. He arrived on Wednesday, June 26th 1963, hours after delivering his sensational Ich bin ein Berliner speech in West Germany.
In Dublin, he met 80-year-old President de Valera, laid a wreath at Arbour Hill, addressed both Houses of the Oireachtas, lunched with taoiseach Seán Lemass and attended a garden party at Áras an Uachtaráin. He flew to Co Wexford, spoke in Wexford town and New Ross, and visited his ancestral home in Dunganstown. The president also visited counties Cork, Galway and Limerick.
JFK left from Shannon Airport on Saturday, June 29th, promising to return in the spring, but was assassinated in Dallas, Texas, on November 22nd, aged 46.