MARKING the 30th anniversary of the death of Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy (mother of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy), the fourth annual Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Autumn School (RFKAS) in Bruff, County Limerick, will feature an address by her grand-daughter, Kathleen Kennedy Townsend.
It runs in the Thomas Fitzgerald Centre on the October Bank Holiday weekend (October 24-26) .
The town of Bruff and nearby Lough Gur have many links with America’s Fitzgerald Kennedy political dynasty. Three of Rose’s four grandparents came from the Bruff/Lough Gur area, emigrating emigrated to Boston in the 1850s post-Famine exodus from Ireland.
This year is also the 100th anniversary of the birth of Robert F Kennedy (Kathleen’s father), who was attorney general in his brother’s administration (1961-1964), and was assassinated in June 1968 while campaigning for the Democratic Party nomination in that year’s US presidential election.
The Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Autumn School was established by members of the community in Bruff and Lough Gur to memorialise the Fitzgerald Kennedy links with their area and other places in County Limerick. The local committee includes a number of Fitzgerald cousins of the family.
The organisers have put together a detailed programme for Kathleen Kennedy Townsend (who was the first-born grandchild of Rose), including viewing her ancestral family records in the local Catholic Church; walking to the site of her ancestral family home, and to the graveyard where her forebears are buried.
Full details of the weekend events are available on the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Autumn School website.
