“Brian Boru was of the family of Cormac Cas. His father was Kennedy, son of Lorcan. He was slain in battle with the Danes (951). At his death Brian was but a lad of ten years.”
What must John F. Kennedy have thought, when he read his surname in this history of the royalty of Ireland from a millennium ago? Brian Boru went on to become the high king of Ireland from 1002 to 1014. He was less pleased to learn that the name Kennedy (Cennétig) meant “ugly head.”
President John F. Kennedy was America’s first Irish-Catholic president, and his family’s Irish roots stretched back for generations. The Fitzgerald and the Kennedy families both migrated to America in the mid-nineteenth century, escaping the devastating potato famine to find work and a better life. JFK visited Ireland during his presidency, in June 1963. This volume includes his ownership signature and details the history of Ireland to the year 1210.
The author, Rev. Edward Alfred D’Alton, was ordained as a Catholic priest in 1887. He become dean and vicar-general of the Archdiocese of Tuam in 1930.
