Jimmy Deenihan TD, Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, offically launched the JFK Homecoming Memory Project yesterday, at jfkhomecoming.com. This project is a social media campaign and website which celebrates the 50th Anniversary of the visit of President John F. Kennedy to Ireland in June 1963.
The comprehensive website holds detailed information about the visit, plus a video tribute to the anniversary, which has a number of familiar faces in Irish society participating, including Mícheál Ó Muircheartaigh, Sharon Corr, Jamie Heaslip, Roddy Doyle, Robert Sheehan, Jim Sheridan, Laura Whitmore, Moya Doherty, and Mark Pollock. The website also invites members of the public to upload their own memories and mementoes of the visit; this will build into an archive of valuable detail for later generations of history and genealogy researchers.
This online campaign will complement a major exhibition which is due to open at the National Library of Ireland next month.