The Kennedys may be the best-known family in the United States. They have less money than the Rock efellers, but their public image is good, except among many conservatives and congenital haters of the clan.
Patrick Kennedy arrived in America in 1849, not to escape the Famine apparently, for he left a farm of 80 acres in Dungans town, Co Wexford, but to seek a better life. Aboard ship he met Bridget Murphy and they married after they landed in east Boston.
It was the era of "No Irish Need Apply" for jobs or anything else, except as muckers and scullery maids. Patrick worked as a cooper and died of cholera after nine years in America.
The second generation in America was headed by Patrick Joseph Kennedy, known as P.J. He married Mary Hickey. He was a ward politician and bought a saloon and prospered. The third generation was represented by Joseph Patrick Kennedy, better known as Joe, a Harvard graduate, who married Rose, daughter of "Honey Fitz" Fitzgerald, the mayor of Boston.
Joe's understanding of money and politics increased the family fortune before and after the Wall Street crash of 1929. He worked for Franklin Roosevelt in 1932 and 1936.
The Kennedys are still seen as Irish by themselves and others. It annoyed Joe, a Harvard graduate, who once snarled at a Boston journalist for calling him an Irishman a couple of times in a story. "God damn it," said Joe, "I was born in this country," but he always called himself "an Irishman".
In 1936 he worked for Franklin Roosevelt's re-election after deciding in 1932 that FDR was the best security for the future of his children. Other Irish-American politicians were for Al Smith, the former governor of New York who lost in the Bible belt in 1928.
After the 1936 re-election of Roosevelt, his son asked Joe what job he wanted. He replied ambassador to Britain. He explained: "I've been thinking about it and I'm intrigued by the thought of being the first Irishman to be ambassador from the United States to the Court of St James."
Joe's support for Neville Chamberlain's appeasement policy ended his friendship with Roosevelt and his diplomatic career as well. He returned to Washington in November 1940.
Asked what would happen if Germany overran the world, he had said: "Hell, you can't hold people down. Look at Ireland. The British never did conquer the Irish." These were wrong answers, especially since Roosevelt did not favour the Irish at the time.
Joe wanted to be President. It was not an option in the 1930s, the Catholic taboo had not been broken. He was determined his eldest son, young Joe, would make it. Joe was killed testing a secret aircraft near the end of the war.
Jack took over his father's dream, succeeded, and was assassinated in 1963, as was his brother Bobby in Los Angeles in 1968.
Tragedy and funerals are a Kennedy heritage. Last New Year's Eve, Bobby's son Michael was killed skiing on the slopes of Aspen Mountain, Colorado. His brother David died of a drug overdose in 1983.
Joe Kennedy, the eldest of Bobby's children, had a successful career in Congress and was running for governor of Massachusetts this year when he quit. There was widespread criticism of the younger generation of Kennedys at the time. Jack Kennedy's son, John, joined in the criticism in his magazine George. He has adjusted to Kennedy fame by ignoring it. Joe Kennedy's sister, Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, Lieutenant Governor of Maryland, is a success.
Ted Kennedy, the chief of the clan, is considered the most influential member of the US Senate, according to journalists who cover congress. A conservative columnist argued recently that Kennedy's "greatest strength is his stead fast passion. He wears down the opposition. If he doesn't win to day, he comes back tomorrow. But he doesn't compromise his principles, even if he must make short-term accommodations to move a step closer to his ultimate goal."
It is ironic that Ted, the youngest son of that hard-rock conservative, Joe Kennedy, is the most powerful liberal in the US Senate.
