This article is from page 1 of the 2013-06-25 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 1 JPG
FIFTY years to the week that President John F Kennedy said farewell to Ireland at Shannon Airport with his famous pledge to “come back and see old Shannon’s face again”, it has been claimed that his wife Jackie Kennedy Irish ancestors hailed from West Clare. American genealogist Jim O’Callaghan has claimed that Jackie Kennedy was more Irish than her husband, saying that she was “one-eighth French amost of her ancestors coming from Shandrum, near Mullagh, in Co Clare”.
O’Callaghan discovered that on her maternal line, all eight greatgreat grandparents and two of her four great-grandparents were born in Ireland, making her more Mullagh than Montpellier. John F Kennedy also had Clare roots, with his great grandfather being James Hickey who hailed from near Dromoland Castle.