Glan share in the joy of JFK's visit
Let the Busy World be Hushed
Fr Jason Murphy
The visit of John F. Kennedy to Ireland in June 1963 was a much anticipated homecoming of an emigrant son, to spend what would be for him ‘the best four days of his life’ in the land of his forebearers, in months preceding his tragic demise. He was greeted by cheering crowds wherever he went, all filled with excitement to catch a glimpse of the dashing young President, the harbinger of hope and healing in a time of unease in American politics.
He shared tea with his cousins in the kitchen of their home in Dunganstown, Co. Wexford and wooed the one hundred thousand and more people who gathered in Eyre Square in Galway to listen to the mellifluous words spoken in the June sunshine in stark contrast to the abrasive and egotistical language used in a speech given to invited guests at the Ambassador’s residence in Deerpark on Saturday last. He truly captured the hearts of a nation all those years ago as portraits of his smiling face hung on every kitchen wall beside that of John Paul II and the Sacred Heart for 30 years and more thereafter.
People who couldn’t travel to catch a glimpse were glued to the wireless or the few television sets that dotted the townlands of every parish.
There were three such sets in the Parish of Glangevlin in West Cavan in 1963, one in Fr. Brennan’s house on top of the hill, another in Mrs. Melanophy’s, the teacher’s house who taught in Corravagh National School along the road that takes you to Dowra village and the third was a fourteen-inch Bush black and white television set that stood proudly in the front room of Frank & Kate McGovern’s house near the cross in Glangevlin. In 1960 this television set a trend, being the very first in the Parish, Fr Brennan having made a visit to Kate’s before purchasing his own. McGovern’s set was bought in Smith’s electrical shop on the Diamond in Belturbet. It was paid for with what was left week on week from her son Hugh’s small apprentice’s earnings, who at 14 years of age had gone to Belturbet to serve his time in Aiden Smith’s bar and grocery, after years traversing the country with Ludge McGovern in his travelling shop, gathering up whatever empty jam jars he could find to sell back to Ludge, as a nixer, along the way.
Here he worked in The Diamond Bar, bottling beer and Guinness from the big wooden barrels that were lowered down into the dark cellar from the street. Bottles, that had first to be washed, filled, corked and carried in crates, dozen after dozen, up the damp flight of stairs to be stacked onto shelves in the bar. Fair days in the town were especially busy, men in hats and peak caps came in from the street to seal a deal with a spit in the hand, having bought or sold cattle, pigs or sheep on the fair green or along the main street. Christmas was an especially busy time, delivering crates of beer to houses throughout the town for the festivities of the days ahead and come the Christmas Eve of 1960 he made his last payment on the Bush television set, to bring it home to his mother Kate as a present for Christmas Day.
It was a television that brought great joy and excitement to not only the McGovern household but to the parish and the neighbouring houses. People gathered in of a summer Sunday to watch football matches from Croke Park with the volume turned down and the sound of Micheal O Hehir from the Radio Parallelogram turned up, enjoying the best of both mediums. Kate always made ponjers of tea and handed out slices of soda bread to every one gathered in and of a Saturday afternoon the children from round and about sat on forums to watch the cowboy and Indians films from the 14 inch screen. But the biggest of all audiences was in those four days of June when President Kennedy graced these shores and all the folk from neighbouring townlands travelled on donkey and cart over the days to get as real to life look at the young Irish President. And so it was that the scrimping and scraping, the saving and gathering of the young Hugh McGovern, who carted bottles by the dozen up and down stairs on cold winter evenings, brought joy to countless people about Glan and opened wide the world, on a 14 inch television screen, that was way beyond the Gap, which he was about to embrace beyond the Irish Sea.