President Kennedy Bible from Bruff

John Kennedy’s great-grandfather, Patrick Kennedy, left Dunganstown, County Wexford during the Great Hunger and became a cooper in Boston. The Kennedy home in Dunganstown was turned into a museum in 1999. Another branch of JFK’s family, the Fitzgeralds, came from County Limerick village of Bruff and carried with them a family bible. Over a century later John Kennedy would lay his hand on that same bible as he took the oath of office of the nation that took in his poor immigrant ancestors. One can only imagine the reaction of the Fitzgerald’s on the way to “the land of the free” had someone predicted the future purpose to which that bible would be applied.