Born in Dublin on October 16, 1854, Wilde became perhaps one of the most famous writers in history – not just for his creative works, including “The Picture of Dorian Gray” and “The Importance of Being Earnest,” but also for his witty criticisms and dandyism style. Wilde was one of the first people to be famous simply for being famous.

See: How Oscar Wilde became the first celebrity “famous for being famous.”

The Victorian novelist, poet, playwright and later gay icon faced worlds of scrutiny throughout his life of 46 years, which ended in imprisonment and exile.

He studied classics and philosophy at Trinity College Dublin, and was a figurehead of literary aestheticism.

Click here for ten amazing facts about the literary legend.

Though famously contrarian and controversial in his views, Wilde is celebrated as a genius and grandmaster of the English language – notable titles include “The Importance of Being Earnest,” “The Picture of Dorian Gray,” “The Canterville Ghost,” “Salome,” and of course, his widely quoted witticisms.

Click here for IrishCentral’s collection of Oscar Wilde’s ten greatest sayings.

Wilde spent most of his later years living in Paris and London, and traveling to the US to deliver lectures. Though married with children to Constance Lloyd, his tempestuous love affair with young writer Alfred Douglas was a topic on all tongues.

Click here to see a rare unpublished photo of Wilde.

*Originally published in October 2014. 

Are you looking for Gaelic baby name inspiration? Here we have a list of Ireland’s most popular female names of Irish origin and their meanings. The names are pulled from from the Central Statistics Office’s 2013 release.

1. Aoife (pronounced: ee-fa)

This name means beautiful, radiant or joyful, and likely derives from the Gaelic word ‘aoibh’ meaning ‘beauty’ or ‘pleasure.’ In Irish mythology, Aoife is known as the greatest woman warrior in the world. She gave birth to the mythological hero Cuchulainn’s only son, Connlach, and was the daughter of a king of Connacht. Legend has it, her marriage was arranged by St. Patrick himself.

2. Caoimhe (pronounced: kwee-va or kee-va)

From the Gaelic word ‘caomh,’ this name means gentle, beautiful or precious.

3. Saoirse (pronounced: ser-sha)

This name means ‘freedom’ or ‘liberty.’ It has has strong patriotic overtones, and has only been in use since the 1920s.

4. Ciara (pronounced: kee-ra)

The feminine form of ‘Ciaran,’ this name comes from the Gaelic word ‘ciar,’ which means dark. It implies dark features, like hair or eyes. In history, St. Ciara was a distinguished figure who established a monastery in Co. Tipperary during the seventh century.

5. Niamh (pronounced: neev or nee-iv)

Meaning radiance, luster or brightness. In Irish mythology, Niamh was the daughter of Manannan, god of the sea - she was known as ‘Niamh of the Golden Hair’ and was usually depicted riding on a white horse. She was the lover of poet-hero Oisin; together they lived in Tir-na-nOg, the land of eternal youth.

Read more: What are the top 100 Irish last names?

6. Roisin (pronounced: ro-sheen)

This name means ‘little rose,’ and has been use in Ireland since the sixteenth century. When Irish patriotic poetry and song was outlawed in Ireland, Irish bands would disguise their nationalistic verses and love songs, and sing about Roisin Dubh (‘Dark Rosaleen’) as the poetic symbol for their country.

7. Clodagh (pronounced: clo-da)

Named for the River Clodagh, or Clody River, which runs through Co. Tipperary and Co. Wexford. Like most Irish rivers, the name is associated with a female deity.

8. Aisling (pronounced: ash-ling)

This name means ‘dream’ or ‘vision’ from the Gaelic word ‘aislinge’ and refers to an “aisling,” which is a poetic genre of Irish language poetry from the late 17th century. It only started being used as a first name in the 20th century. The poetic genre has been personified in Ireland as a beautiful woman in peril.

9. Eabha (pronounced: ey-va)

This is the Irish form of Eve (Adam and Eve are Ádhamh agus Éabha in Irish). It means ‘life,’ but comes with all of the connotations of the name Eve, i.e. the mother of all the living.

10. Aoibhinn (pronounced: ey-veen or ee-van)

This name means pleasant, beautiful sheen of radiant beauty. It was a common name for princesses among the royal families of Ireland that has been revived in recent years.

Read more: Irish names that are most mispronounced in America

* Originally published October 2014.

Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President of the United States, was one of 15,000 people worldwide to donate money to Ireland during the Great Irish Famine. This is according to evidence unearthed by respected Irish historian Christine Kinealy, who has studied and written extensively on the Famine for 20 years. Kinealy, a Professor at Drew University in Madison, New Jersey, was rustling through the list of donations and was taken aback when she saw the name of the legendary president who donated $10 or $500 in today’s financial climate.
 
"This was back in 1847 when Lincoln was only a newly elected politician to the House of Representatives. It was an insubstantial sum from an unimportant figure at the time but it is retrospectively very interesting," the Trinity College graduate stated.
 
The 2009 winner of the Will Herberg Award for Excellence in Teaching asserts that this donation was not out of character for Lincoln, who had a lifelong rapport with the Irish.
 
"I suppose Lincoln always had a great affinity for the Irish and their plight. He knew and recited Robert Emmet’s speech from the dock and his favorite ballad was Lady Dufferin’s poem ‘The Lament of the Irish Emigrant’ set to music." 
 
The celebrated politician’s generosity was not unrivaled, however, and many other political figures gave money also. The famine was widely reported at the time and Kinealy’s ceaseless research also uncovered donations from then American President James L. Polk, who donated $50 and from controversial British monarch Queen Victoria.
 
"There were so many donations across the world and it really shows how much sympathy people had for what the Irish were going through. There are donations from China, India, Australia and Russia to name but a few."
 
Kinealy’s latest book is only one of a number of publications the academic has released on the famine and she is widely regarded as one of the foremost experts on the subject.
 
"The Irish Famine is an essential part of the Irish story and has been my interest and passion for the past 20 years."  
 
Her book, titled "International Donations, Private Charity for Ireland during the Great Hunger: The Kindness of Strangers", will be published by Bloomsbury Press and is set to be released by the end of the year.

* Originally published in 2014.

The Irish have long been known for their love of the macabre and humor, even in death. The ‘Dead Funny’ traces the funniest gravestone epitaphs in Ireland. 

Here are my top ten entries. The book written by Allen Foster, a freelance writer,  can be purchased at www.gillmacmillan.ie.

1.  From Northern Ireland:

“Erected to the memory of JOHN PHILLIPS, accidentally shot as a mark of affection by his brother.

2. Belturbet County Cavan:

Here lies John Highey, whose mother and father were drowned in their passage from America. Had they both lived they would be buried here.”

3. Belfast City Cemetery:

DUFFY: In loving memory of beloved Gerald, husband father, Died 30th November 1989 aged 65 years: I told you’s I was sick.

4. Larne County Antrim:

At the grave of a man hanged for sheep stealing:
Here lies the body of Thomas Kemp, lived by wool died by hemp

5. Belfast:

Beneath this stone lies Katherine my wife
In death my comfort, and my plague through life
Oh liberty! but soft I must not boast
She’s haunt me else , by jingo ,with her ghost

6. Dublin:

Here lies the remains of John Hall, grocer. The world is not worth a fig. I have good raisins for saying so.

7. Youghal, County Cork:

Here lies poor but honest Cecil Pratt. He was a most expert angler until death, envious of his merit threw out his line and hooked him.

8. Waterford:

Here lies the body of Anthony Reynolds, who although a miller was an honest man.”

9. County Clare:

This stone was raised to Sarah Ford, not Sarah’s virtues to record - for they’re well known to all the town. No Lord; it was raised to keep her down.”

10. Mallow, County Cork:

Here lies the body of Edmund Spenser, great great grandson of the poet Spenser, unfortunate from his cradle to his grave.”

Details on the life of former First Lady Jackie Kennedy reveal she may have known more of her husband's extramarital affairs than had been previously assumed. Throughout their ten-year marriage, and even now decades after his death, rumor is rife regarding Kennedy's mistresses. Fascination with one of America’s most high-profile first couples refuses to abate.

With the release of “Jackie” this December, Natalie Portman’s portrayal of Jackie Kennedy in the weeks immediately after her husband’s assassination, interest around the First Lady and her relationship with her husband has surged as more information is revealed about Kennedy’s complicated marriage.

In a new feature in People Magazine, friends of the Kennedys and those who have written in depth about their lives reveal that Jackie Kennedy may have had an understanding with her husband regarding his affairs and knew of several of the women with whom he had relationships.

“It was a marriage of its time,” a friend told People Magazine.

“At the end of the day, Jack came back to Jackie – and that was it. They loved each other.”

“It was kinetic between them. She wasn’t trying to change him.”

“Jackie Style” author Pamela Keogh claims the example set by Jackie’s father, Wall Street stockbroker John Bouvier, set the tone for what the young woman would expect from her own marriage as a result of his affairs during his marriage to her mother.

“She came from a world where that is what men did, and it was accepted,” Keogh said.

“For these women, if they ever did discuss [their husbands’ infidelities], it was more like, ‘This is what’s going on; let’s go out and get the kids and get on a horse,’” agrees Cornelia Guest, a daughter of one of the First Lady’s close friends.

“They were much more pragmatic about the whole thing.”

“It was all just, you turn the other cheek.”

Jackie Kennedy had, in fact, even spoken to other people about several of her husband’s affairs, claims New York City gossip columnist Liz Smith.

“[Her friends] Truman Capote and Gore Vidal told me she knew all about Judith Exner [an alleged mistress] and everybody else, and that she read [my stories] on Judith with high interest,” Smith said.

Read more: Could Caroline Kennedy be the next Hillary Clinton and run for president?

Exner, who served as a conduit between JFK and mobster Sam Giancana, claimed she had an abortion after becoming pregnant with the President’s child, revealing details about their alleged affair in her 1977 memoir “My Story.” Kennedy is said to have been unsurprised by what the book revealed.

Jackie Kennedy was also seemingly aware of her husband's alleged affair with White House Staff member Priscilla Wear. According to Kennedy press aide Barbara Gamarekian, Jackie stated, “This is the girl that’s sleeping with my husband” while speaking in French to a Paris-Match reporter.

In keeping with the idea that Jack would always return to Jackie in the end, despite the fact that he is accused of using his special assistant Dave Powers to line up willing women, White House intern Mimi Alford claims he was never “looking for a relationship to replace his marriage.” Alford revealed her 18-month relationship with JFK in her 2012 memoir “Once Upon a Secret: My Affair With John F. Kennedy and Its Aftermath.”

Jill Cowan, a secretary in the White House Press Office, who has also been rumored to have had an affair with JFK, has never commented on her own relationship with him but has spoken of the admiration he held for his wife.

She claimed he was “very proud of the fact Mrs. Kennedy had kept a book of all the place settings and pictures of the flowers, the whole sort of personal touches in the White House.”

Both of the two other high-profile women JFK is alleged to have had affairs with, actress Marilyn Monroe and Mary Pinchot Meyer, the sister-in-law of legendary Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee, died in tragic and unexplained circumstances.

The mental health of Monroe had long been a cause of concern for the President until she mysteriously took an overdose in 1962, aged 36.

Meyer was murdered in Georgetown two years later in a shooting that has not yet been resolved but has fanned the flames of plenty of conspiracy theories.

Earlier this year a handwritten love letter from JFK to Meyer was sold at auction.

“Why don’t you leave suburbia for once – come and see me – either here – or at the Cape next week or in Boston the 19th,” Kennedy wrote in the four-page letter. “I know it is unwise, irrational, and that you may hate it – on the other hand, you may not – and I will love it,” the letter read.

“You say that it is good for me not to get what I want. After all of these years – you should give me a more loving answer than that. Why don’t you just say yes.”

Read more: Jackie Kennedy's Secret Service bodyguard reviews new "Jackie" movie

* Originally published in Dec 2016.

"No Irish Need Apply;" "No Irish Need Apply;" "No Irish Wanted;" "No Irish." These signs and ads, the memory of which was passed on through the generations, were claimed to be a myth until 2015, when a teenager in Washington, D.C. found troves of evidence that disproved the once prevailing theory put forth by history professor Dr. Richard Jensen that NINA barely existed. 

In a July 2015 piece for the Oxford Journal of Social History– the same journal where Jensen once published his theories – Rebecca A. Fried, then an eighth-grader at the Sidwell Friends school in Washington, DC, found overwhelming evidence that the NINA signs were very real and very prevalent.

Inspired by her achievement, Bill Fitzpatrick, an IrishCentral reader from Boston, decided to take a deep dive into the history of NINA in Boston. The examples of ads he found, collected in the following video, paint a vivid picture of the discrimination faced by our Irish ancestors just a little over 100 years ago. In some of the advertisements "colored" employees were fine. In other ads it was "No Irish or drunks." In many it was only Protestants who could apply.

Fitzpatrick has proven conclusively the signs existed and has added significantly to Fried's great work.

In a wonderfully written and researched rebuttal, Fried challenged Jensen’s claim that “the NINA phenomenon is an ahistorical memory to be explained by ‘delu[sional]’ group psychology and ‘the political need to be bona-fide victims’ rather than by the fact of historic discrimination.”

Instead, she wrote, “the documentary record better supports the earlier view that Irish-Americans have a communal recollection of NINA advertising because NINA advertising did, in fact, exist over a substantial period of United States history, sometimes on a fairly widespread basis.” Using her digital savvy, Fried searched online newspaper archives and databases to find decades worth of No Irish Need Apply ads from across the US, definitively setting the record straight. 

Now Fitzpatrick, focusing solely on Boston, has shown how widespread they were there.

"Growing up in Boston I heard about the signs and knew the history of anti-Irish sentiment from my grandparents and other Irish who settled in Boston," he told IrishCentral, "so I thought I would try to find some examples. I signed up for a newspaper archives subscription and started researching.

However, he quickly realized that, "The NINA signs you see today are obvious reproductions. Twelve bucks on eBbay complete with water stains and thumbtack holes. However, the fine print says 'Boston Printing Co 1915.' By 1915 the Irish were running Boston and I doubt Mayor Curley would tolerate such bigotry."

Instead, to find real-life examples, he had to "go back to the 1880s and 90s [editions of] The Boston Evening Globe and the Boston Post for the classifieds. There were four addresses from my old neighborhood alone. Mostly Irish women were on the receiving end of these ads – servant, waitress, etc. My grandmother, Nellie Hurley, was one of them."

The video includes the announcement of her marriage to Fitzpatrick's grandfather, Michael Connolly, in addition to a photo of the Gaelic football Team Erin's Hopes, where Pa Connolly is at the top right. "They and my paternal grandparents and thousands of Irish faced this harsh reality in the daily papers as well as in the windows of factories, warehouses, etc," Fitzpatrick said.

Violet Jessop was an incredibly lucky Irish woman who survived the sinkings of the Titanic and the Britannic as well as a major accident on the Olympic. Born in 1887 in Argentina to Irish immigrants, Jessop contracted tuberculosis at a young age and was expected to survive only a few months. She somehow recovered and went on to live a long, healthy life, reports TodayIFoundOut.

After her father died, Jessop’s mother moved the family to England and began working as a stewardess on a ship. When she became ill, Violet, who was attending a convent school, stepped in to become a ship stewardess herself.

Only 21 years old, Violet had difficulty finding a job as a stewardess as employers feared her youth and good looks would “cause problems” with the crew and passengers. (In fact, she did receive at least three proposals, including one from a wealthy first-class passenger, over the course of her career.)

Violet decided to make herself look frumpy with old clothes and no makeup, and after a short stint on the Orinoco, a Royal Mail Line steamer, she was hired by the White Star Line in 1908 to serve aboard the Majestic.

In 1910 she began working aboard the Olympic. One year later, the Olympic collided with HMS Hawke, a ship designed to sink ships by ramming them. Although both ships sustained considerable damage, the ship did not sink and made it back to port. Violet disembarked without being harmed.

A couple of years later, the White Star Line was looking for crew to cater to the VIPs sailing on the Titanic. Violet took a job on board the “unsinkable” ship. She escaped the ship’s sinking in lifeboat 16.

“I was ordered up on deck. Calmly, passengers strolled about. I stood at the bulkhead with the other stewardesses, watching the women cling to their husbands before being put into the boats with their children. Sometime after, a ship’s officer ordered us into the boat first to show some women it was safe,” she wrote in her memoir.

Read more: My grandmother was supposed to be on the Titanic (PHOTOS)

In the lifeboat, Violet was handed a baby to care for. When they were rescued by the Carpathia, the baby’s mother trapped the baby out of Violet’s arms and ran off.

Having survived that disaster, Violet decided to serve as a nurse on board the Britannic, which was operating in the Aegean Sea just before World War I. The ship sustained damage and started sinking after it ran into a mine that had been planted by a German U-boat.

Unable to reach a lifeboat, Jessop jumped overboard.

“I leapt into the water but was sucked under the ship’s keel which struck my head. I escaped, but years later when I went to my doctor because of a lot of headaches, he discovered I had once sustained a fracture of the skull!” she said.

After the war, Violet left the White Star Line to work for the Red Star Line and worked on a ship doing world cruises for several years. Luckily, she was able to avoid any further ship disaster and retired at the age of 61. She died in 1971 of congestive heart failure at the age of 84.

* Originally published in May 2015. 

As of October 2016, "The Boys in the Boat" has been in the The New York Times best-seller list for non-fiction for 121 weeks. "The Boys in the Boat" is a story in the tradition of Laura Hillenbrand’s best-seller Unbroken. Both explore characters who overcame adversity to experience Olympic glory. One of the so-called “boys in the boat” is described by author Daniel James Brown as “Irish American through and through.” His name was Chuck Day, one of eight college students from the University of Washington who went on to compete in the 1936 Olympics.

Those, of course, were one of the most controversial -- and to many, infamous -- Olympic games of the 20th century. The 1936 Games took place in Berlin. German Chancellor Adolf Hitler believed the exhibition would thrust Germany to the center of the world stage.

Of course, Hitler had already initiated his “master plan” and had started persecuting minorities, most infamously Jews. Hitler did his best to hide any evidence of his evil doings while the world’s top athletes converged on Berlin.

Perhaps the most memorable moments from the 1936 Olympics were when African American runner Jessie Owens won several gold medals. This seemed a clear rejection of Hitler’s premise that white Aryans were superior when it came to everything from brains to athletics.

Less well-known, of course, was the story of the University of Washington rowing team.

On the surface, this is not exactly an epic story. Rowing is not what many people think of when they think about a compelling spectator sport.

But Brown makes an important point by using Hitler and the 1936 Olympics as a backdrop. Not only did it seem as if Hitler might try and take over the world. Hitler felt he could -- and should -- do so because Germans were the “master race.”

And who were the Americans going to send to compete against these well-trained Aryans? A team consisting mainly of lower- and working-class kids from the bland environs of Washington State. These were, by and large, sons of farmers and lumberjacks, whose modest livings were decimated by the Great Depression.

There was Joe Rantz, who was left by his family to raise himself at the age of 15.

“You're pretty much all grown up now anyway,” his grandmother told him.

Not surprisingly, Rantz grew up distrustful, unwilling to believe anybody would want to work together to achieve a common goal. Then there was the Irish American Day.

Now there is another Irish boy in the boat. Published reports have said that Belfast native Kenneth Branagh is going to direct a planned big-screen adaptation of Brown’s book.

Brown met Rantz’s daughter at a homeowner’s association meeting a few years back. Rantz was in the last days of his life but wanted to meet Brown. When Brown heard Rantz’ story of how he overcame poverty and obscurity to become a champion rower and eventually an Olympian, he believed he had a best-seller on his hands.

At the center of the book are the 8 “boys” who learned how to work as a team. It’s a clear metaphor for a nation that was down on its luck and needed to come together if it was going to overcome the adversity of the Great Depression. Rantz teamed up with Day, who was described as “quick-tempered” but also “an emotional spark plug.”

Brown credits the team’s Coach Al Ulbrickon, the ninth American of the title, for putting together a team of diverse personalities which brought out the best in all team members.

The performance of the rowing team also foreshadowed what would happen by 1941, when America had to come together for a different reason -- to fight Germany and the Axis powers in World War II.

Fittingly, in the race for the gold medal, the Americans faced a tight race against not only Germany but its ally, Italy. The “boys” ultimately nabbed the gold.

Most of the boys remained friends for life, except, sadly, for the Irish-American Day, who died of lung cancer before he turned 50. The success of Brown’s book -- and the forthcoming movie -- is a testament to Day’s memorable accomplishment.

Contact “Sidewalks” at tdeignan.blogspot.com.

* Originally published in April 2015. 

The Irish has been a huge presence and influence in the Caribbean.

In Jamaica, the influence can be found in place names such as Irish Town and Dublin Castle in St. Andrew, Clonmel and Kildare in St. Mary, and Belfast and Middleton in St. Thomas. There is also a surplus of Irish last names including Collins, Murphy, Madden, Mulling, McCarthy and McDonnough.

So how did the Irish wind up in the Caribbean?

Krystal D’Costa of Scientific American writes that after the Battle of Kinsale, the Irish clan system was abolished and around 30,000 prisoners of war were shipped off and sold as laborers to the colonies of the Caribbean and United States.

“The first Irish slaves were sold to a settlement on the Amazon River In South America in 1612. It would probably be more accurate to say that the first “recorded” sale of Irish slaves was in 1612, because the English, who were noted for their meticulous record-keeping, simply did not keep track of things Irish, whether it be goods or people, unless such was being shipped to England.”

This would become a common practice after the Proclamation of 1625.

“In 1629 a large group of Irish men and women were sent to Guiana, and by 1632, Irish were the main slaves sold to Antigua and Montserrat in the West Indies. By 1637 a census showed that 69% of the total population of Montserrat were Irish slaves, which records show was a cause of concern to the English planters.”

The Irish were a more desirable “slave stock” than Africans, who had to be “caught,” because they could be obtained for free and sold for a profit. Because they were “cheaper” the Irish would often suffer harsher punishments from their plantation masters.

It is estimated that between 30,000 and 80,000 Irish were sold as laborers. D’Costa says that “while most European settlers on the islands confined themselves to a single island giving rise to the identifications we know today as Hispanic Caribbean, French Caribbean, and British Caribbean,” the Irish presence in the Caribbean became firmly established and can be found on practically all of the Caribbean islands.

* Originally published in April 2015. 

The story of Kathleen ‘Kick’ Kennedy, the rebellious fourth daughter of Rose and Joseph Kennedy who defied her family for love, was unpublicized after her untimely death at the age of 28.

“She was the only rebel of the family,” says Lynne McTaggart, author of 1983's "Kathleen Kennedy: Her Life and Times." “If you look at all nine [Kennedy] children, she was the only one who didn't march down the prescribed road.”

Her story was recently featured in the series "Million Dollar American Princesses" on the Smithsonian Channel, the Daily Mail reports. The documentary was narrated in part by Kick’s namesake, Robert F Kennedy Jr’s 27-year-old daughter.

“When I was little, I wondered why I had a funny name,” Kathleen 'Kick' Kennedy, 27, told the New York Post. “I was named after my great-aunt, who was a lot of fun. She was a 'kick’!” 

The elder Kick, who was born in Brookline, MA in 1920, was a charmer who never failed to catch the attention of the opposite sex.

“She dated friends of her brothers – red-blooded American jocks,” says McTaggart.

When Joe Kennedy was appointed US ambassador to the UK, he and his family departed for London. There 18-year-old Kick was named debutante of the year. 

“She was idiosyncratically charming,” says her namesake niece. “She would call the Duke of Marlborough ‘Dukie Wookie’ and chewed gum walking down the streets of London.”

At a party, she met William Cavendish, Marquess of Hartington, who was set to be the future duke of Devonshire. Kick called him Billy.

“He was a great catch, and a sweet guy,” McTaggart said, adding that he was “rather shy” compared to Kick. 

Billy and Kick soon fell in love.

However, after Germany invaded Poland in 1939, Joe Kennedy sent his family back to the United States. Although the 19-year-old Kick begged to stay so she could be with Billy, she returned to America. 

Kick stayed in the United States for the next four years, but was determined to make her way back to the UK. She joined the Red Cross, which was sending volunteers to England. 

She finally made it back to London, and she and Billy, who was in the British Army, picked up where they had left off. Rose Kennedy, however, was not happy that her daughter was with a Protestant. 

“Marrying outside of the church was probably the worst sin one could commit,” Kick Kennedy explains. “It meant living one's life in mortal sin and eventually going to hell.” 

Kick ignored her mother and married Billy in a civil ceremony in May 1944.

Kick's older brother Joe Jr was the only Kennedy in attendance. 

Four weeks later, Billy was sent to the Belgian front. 

In August of the same year, Joe Jr was killed when his plane exploded while he was over France on a secret bombing mission. 

Less than a month later – four months after Billy and Kick wed – Billy was shot through the heart by a German sniper.

“I can't imagine anything more devastating,” says the younger Kick. “But the rule is, Kennedys don't cry.”

After mourning Joe in the United States, Kick returned to England as Lady Hartington. 

She soon found love again with Peter Fitzwilliam, a wealthy Protestant who was also a married man. 

Fitzwilliam was in the process of divorcing his wife when Kick and he began a relationship, but her parents were still horrified and threatened to disown their daughter. 

“When you've seen so much tragedy during the war, it makes you feel that you'd better live for the moment,” said McTaggart. 

“Fitzwilliam had a lot of money and was a lot of fun,” she added. “I think the chances of him being faithful to her were zero.”

While traveling to France to meet up with Kick's father, the couple boarded a plane for a stop on the Riviera. Storms caused the plane to crash in the mountains and all passengers and crew were killed. 

Kick's father Joe was the only Kennedy at the funeral. 

The Kennedy family kept the death quiet due to the scandalous circumstances surrounding Kick’s death and because of JFK’s burgeoning political career.

She was buried in a small churchyard in Edenser, England as Kathleen Cavendish, Marchioness of Hartington. Her husband Billy was buried in Belgium where he was killed.

“The times she lived in necessitated bravery and a strong ability to carry on in the face of tragedy,” said the younger Kick Kennedy. “Her decisions were informed by her own moral compass, not that of her parents or society.”

She says she cherishes a photo of her great aunt dressed in a Red Cross uniform.   

“[My great-aunt] looks quite beautiful and you can feel her vigor,” she said of the photo. “I find her story powerful and her spirit-inspiring.”

* Originally published in January 2016.

The surname Murphy is still number one in Ireland—even after more than 100 years—followed closely by Kelly, Byrne and Ryan. The top Irish surname results comes from the Central Statistics Office (CSO) who compiled the data from the babies names registered in 2014. Being at the top spot for over 100 years, it’s no wonder there are well over 50,000 bearers of the name in Ireland alone. However, there are more Murphys in the United States than in Ireland. The CSO found that in 2014, of the 67,462 births registered, 767 babies were named Murphy, 633 under Kelly, and 552 under Byrne. Also in the top ten were Ryan, O'Brien, Walsh, O'Sullivan, O'Connor, Doyle, and McCarthy.

According to the CSO, the baby names Jack and Emily were the most popular baby names. Jack has held the top position since 2007 while Emily has remained in the top spot since 2011. In the wider EU region, the most popular baby names are Muhammad for a boy and Maya for a girl.

Here’s the top 20 family names in Ireland:

1. Murphy

2. Kelly

3. Byrne

4. Ryan

5. O'Brien

6. Walsh

7. O'Sullivan

8. O'Connor

9. Doyle

10. McCarthy

11. O'Neill

12. Lynch

13. O'Reilly

14. Dunne

15. McDonagh

16. Brennan

17. Fitzgerald

18. Daly

19. Kavanagh

20. Nolan

Read more: What's your Irish clan?

* Originally published in July 2015.

The iconic dress that the legendary Marilyn Monroe wore when she sang “Happy Birthday” to John F. Kennedy on his 45th birthday celebration in 1962 is the most expensive item of clothing ever sold at auction.

The stunning, form-fitting dress, which was so tight the movie star had to be sewn into it, was purchased for $4.8 million on November 17, 2016 at Julien’s Auction’s in Los Angeles. The dress had previously been sold at an auction in New York in 1999 for over $1.26 million.

“This is the most iconic piece of clothing that anybody ever wore,” says Martin Nolan of Julien’s Auctions. “It’s historical. It’s political. It’s Marilyn Monroe. It’s the Kennedy’s. It’s a fashion statement.”

The skin-colored gown shimmers with 2,500 crystals, all of which had to be “strategically” hand-stitched on the dress because Marilyn did not wear undergarments.

It was her sultry, seductive performance at Madison Square Garden on May 19, 1962 for the celebration of the president’s 45th birthday that sparked rumors between an affair between Marilyn and JFK.

The dress has been preserved on a mannequin custom-made with the exact measurements of the legendary starlet.

According to CNBC, the highest bidder of the Jean Louis-designed dress was a representative from the Ripley’s Believe It or Not Museum.

Read more:What JFK meant for Ireland on that historic visit

John F. Kennedy would have celebrated his 100th birthday on Memorial Day, Monday, May 29, 2017. In tribute to JFK, the 35th President of the United States, and his centennial year, IrishCentral is looking back on the life and times of the charismatic and intriguing Irish-American leader; from his early years to his rise to the presidency, to his untimely assassination in November 1963 at just 46 years old. 

Here we look at the relationship between John Fitzgerald Kennedy and the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. For more on JFK and the Kennedy family, you can visit our special topic page.

In 2014, The Irish Times reported that in 1946, former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill voiced his hopes that Ireland would one day be a united nation.

This revelation was discovered in a note Churchill wrote to Ireland’s Ambassador to Britain, John W. Dulanty.

“I said a few words in Parliament the other day about your country because I still hope for a united Ireland,” said Churchill. “You must get those fellows in the North in, though; you can’t do it by force.”

Churchill later added, “There is not, and never was, any bitterness in my heart towards your country.”

It was an interesting time for this Churchill item to hit the news. Author Thomas Maier had just published a fascinating new book entitled "When Lions Roar: The Churchills and the Kennedys."

Maier, whose 2004 book "The Kennedys: America’s Emerald Kings" is the authoritative look at the Kennedys and their Irishness, puts these two prominent families under the microscope in this big book and shows that unlikely as it may seem, Joe Kennedy, his sons, and Churchill were deeply intertwined.

How much so? The same year Churchill wrote to John Dulanty about the possibility of a united Ireland, Churchill’s ties to the Kennedy family became a problem for a skinny young World War II veteran named John F. Kennedy, who was running for a congressional seat in Boston.

The Churchill-Kennedy connection stretches back to the 1930s, as Maier notes.

“As the oft-repeated story goes, Winston Churchill and Joseph P. Kennedy, the family patriarchs, began a visceral dislike for each other almost immediately, one that would devolve into rancor and several fateful differences leading up to World War II,” writes Maier, whose "Masters of Sex" serves as the basis for the Showtime cable drama of the same name.

For all of the tension between the Churchills and the Kennedys, there were also business dealings as well as moments of admiration.

Things really heated up in 1938 when President Franklin Roosevelt appointed Joe Kennedy, one of the most prominent Irish Catholics in the U.S., as the American ambassador to the Court of St. James, basically serving as America’s top official in London.

It was a plum position, but Kennedy’s political views about the world situation proved too troublesome. Kennedy famously felt that the U.S. should stay out of the European war, and in 1940 added that “democracy is finished in England.”

Franklin Roosevelt ultimately canned Kennedy.

But that does not mean the Kennedy family’s association with the Churchills – and Britain – was over.

That’s where JFK’s trouble comes in.

In 1946, after fighting in the war that took his brother’s life and nearly took his own, JFK decided to run for political office. During the nasty campaign, Kennedy’s sister Kathleen’s ties to the British aristocracy became an issue.

After all, Kennedy was trying to win an election in the heavily Irish wards of Boston, where the British aristocracy was not quite as charming as it might have been to certain members of the Kennedys.

“A primary opponent’s camp even claimed that Jack’s sister Kick… had married a descendant of Oliver Cromwell, the scourge of Ireland during its centuries-long oppression by England,” Maier writes.

Between Kathleen and the Churchills, Jack was compelled to write a note to family members asking them, as Maier puts it, “to be more mindful of their British connections.”

Read more: The scandalous, rebellious, and tragic life of JFK’s sister Kick

Recent news items featured the Kennedy women hobnobbing with British high society, and even Joseph Kennedy supporting favorable postwar loan policies towards Britain.

JFK wrote: “Let’s not forget: They read papers here (in Boston) … I’m running for Congress, not Parliament.”

Of course, it turned out that the Kennedys' ties to the Churchills and Britain were not fatal. But as retold by Maier in his important book, this episode is a fascinating moment in American/British/Irish history.

It’s a “special relationship” indeed.

* Originally published in 2014. 

In this, the 150th anniversary of the worst year of the Irish Great Hunger, Black ‘47, commemorations are taking place across the US in memory of both those who died in Ireland of famine and disease and those who made the tortuous journey across the Atlantic, only to have their American Dream cut short on US shores.

The memorial events hasv been inspired by the grit and determination of 89-year-old New Yorker Bill Fahey. who has worked with the Ireland-based group the Committee for Commemoration of Irish Famine Victims (C.C.I.F.V.) to create the

Fahey has worked with the Ireland-based group the Committee for Commemoration of Irish Famine Victims (C.C.I.F.V.) to create the International Hunger markers project, which has planted memorials in US states and throughout Ireland to identify the often unmarked graves of thousands of Irish famine victims.

The project aims to mark all unmarked famine graves wherever they are found - on the Island of Ireland, its islands, and any locations overseas - as an affordable and easy way to respectfully remember all unmarked famine grave sites.

“These people were dehumanized and to leave them in the ground with nothing over them was terrible, especially as they were innocent,” Fahey, whose mother and father hail from Laois and Mayo respectively, told IrishCentral

“They weren't doing anything and it seemed like nobody cared about them.”

Read more: Irish government to name an official day for annual Irish famine commemoration

Referring to what he believes as the “conspiracy of silence” surrounding much of the history of the famine in Ireland, Fahey tells of his determination to research as much as possible about the country and the time, traveling to Ireland to spend days in National University of Ireland, Maynooth, and the National Library looking at exports of food from the country in the 1840s.

“They [the Irish government] don't want anybody to know about these things,” he claims, “and we should remember these people because they were great people.

“They could have had food and aid and everything else if they gave up their faith but they didn’t,” Fahey continues, referring to the practice of soup kitchens run by non-Catholics during the famine years to encourage starving people to renege on Catholicism in exchange for food.  

 “These are our family ancestors and we should ever forget what was done to them.”

“What’s the matter with the Irish people?” he asks, questioning what Irish politicians were doing when groups such as C.C.I.F.V. were campaigning for a national day of commemoration for the Great Hunger over the past number of decades.

The national set day of remembrance is now to begin in 2018, after years of campaigning by those who expressed their dismay and frustration at this culture-changing event in Irish history being left to the wayside, as they saw it.

Unfortunately, the date chosen by the Irish government may disrupt the plans of some of the commemoration’s most loyal organizers across the US, as the disparity between Mother’s Day in Ireland and the US comes into play.

Now officially assigned as the second Sunday in May, the national day of commemoration will be in conflict with the US Mother’s Day, making programming more difficult for the likes of the Baltimore Irish Railroad Workers Museum, who, in collaboration with local divisions of the Ancient Order of Hibernians, hold an annual remembrance event.

Last weekend, Fahey drove from New York to Baltimore where the museum was erecting another one of his marker stones in St. Peter’s Cemetery.

“He's just so dedicated and so committed,” Michael Mellett, President of the Board of Directors for the Museum, enthuses of Fahey. Having held a commemoration in the museum backyard since at least 2009, the museum now plans to incorporate the marker into events in the future, while they still have a further two markers from Fahey to place in other local cemeteries with large Irish populations.

Read more: Ireland should have a national day of commemoration for the Great Hunger

Celebrating the lives of James Feeley and his wife Sarah Feeley (neé Liberty), both born in Tipperary, the Baltimore Irish Railroad Workers Museum exhibits in two houses of the “Lemmon Street Five”, a row of houses in the Hollins Market area of Baltimore occupied by Irish immigrants working on the Baltimore Ohio railroad.

Billing themselves as “the biggest little museum in Baltimore,” with thanks to their extensive and impressive programming for such little funding, the museum plan to launch a capital campaign this June to buy back the remaining houses along the row which they were forced to give up in order to keep the project rolling. Now set to celebrate their 20th anniversary this June 17 with an event in their backyard alongside the Famine Irish tribute wall, they will launch a bid to raise $1 million to make themselves less of a little museum.

“Most of the parish was Irish,” said Mellett of St Peter’s, where the museum is located and in which cemetery the famine marker is placed.

“It was a real working-class Irish immigrant neighborhood, mostly working at the railroad and associated industries.

“Just walking through that graveyard is spectacular because there are 6ft-, 8ft-, 10 ft-high obelisks that are just beautifully chiseled, with angels chiseled out of the marble and beautiful scenes. There's even one of a boat, a ship, it's just a gorgeous place.” 

Read more: Exploring the life of an Irish railroad family at the Baltimore Shrine to the Immigrant Irish

The museum was fortunately given carte blanche with the site they chose for the marker by Jonah House, a community activist group who now oversee St. Peter’s Cemetery. Placed in a beautiful spot between two trees and in a great green space, Mellett hopes that the museum will be able to continue to bring tours to the remembrance spot, sharing the cemetery with those visiting the famous peace activist and former Roman Catholic priest Philip Berrigan, who is also buried here.

This Sunday, the markers’ creator Fahey will also travel to Staten Island where they will hold their own Great Hunger commemoration with music from Redbrick Duo before the official ceremony kicks off at 2 pm. Organized by Friends of Abandoned Cemeteries and held annually on the grounds of the NYC Marine Hospital Quarantine Station, one of Fahey’s famine markers was erected on the site in 2015. The marker in Staten Island was, in fact, the first to be erected in a US city.

During the years of the Great Irish Famine (1845-1858) tens of thousands of Irish Immigrants came to New York Harbor, many of whom were found with disease and perished. The Marine Hospital and Quarantine Station operated on Staten Island from 1799 until 1858, checking all those who came into New York harbor for signs of disease before being let ashore.

The hospital saw many casualties among the Irish who braved the perilous voyage across the Atlantic in search of safer shores and the medical center came to operate two cemeteries to cope with the mass of deaths among starving and weak Irish immigrants.

Those who died were buried on Staten Island, no death certificates were issued, no cemetery log kept, and gradually the burial sites disappeared from all further records.

If you’re interested in seeing more from the Great Hunger marker on Staten Island, IrishCentral will be streaming a Facebook Live from the commemoration events this weekend. Like our page at www.facebook.com/IrishCentral/ to stay up to date with the event and let us know where you’re watching from.

Liam continues to dominate in the baby names’ world, coming in as the most common name used for a baby boy in the state of New York in 2016. Liam is already known as a highly popular first name in the US coming out strong since 2012 when it made the nation’s most popular names, and it is known to be especially popular in the midwest and northwest.

Liam is already known as a highly popular first name across the US coming on strong since 2012 when it made the nation’s most popular names, and it is known to be especially popular in the midwest and northwest.

Released on Thursday, the Social Security Administration revealed that Liam still reigns as king in New York based on social security card registrations last year.

Irish girls’ names, however, did not have such luck and none appear to have come close to the top spot with Olivia reigning supreme.

The results from New York are slightly different from the national standard where Noah and Emma held the number one spots.

In New York state, the remaining top boys’ names were Jacob, Noah, Ethan and Michael while parents registering a little baby girl seem to opt for names that solely end with an “a” with Emma, Sophia, Isabella and Ava coming in after Olivia.

Read more: Irish baby first names that are super popular in the US

This is the second year in a row that Liam is the most registered baby boy name in the state with 1,413 Liams and 1,215 Olivias coming into the world via the Empire State.

“We generally release the list after Mother’s Day,” said SSA spokesman Everett Lo.

“It’s a fun thing to do and it’s one way we remind everyone that your Social Security Number is with you through life’s journey.”

Read more: Irish baby name Liam top choice among American families

Liam is sometimes thought to be a shortened form of Uilliam, the Irish form of William, a Germanic name made of two words meaning “desire” and “protection.”

If you are on the lookout for an Irish baby name but want to pick something a little different to Liam, you can find plenty of other suggestions on IrishCentral’s guide to the most popular Irish baby names in America.

H/T:NY Daily Life

Were you adopted from Ireland? Or are you a mother whose child was adopted because you were unmarried there?

Were you born in a Mother and Baby Home, a County Home or similar place in Ireland?

Or are you a relative of an adopted person from Ireland? Or did you once work for an institution or agency involved with unmarried mothers and their children there?

The Adoption Rights Alliance and the Justice for Magdalenes Research group launched Clann in 2016 to gather the data and submit a group report to the ongoing Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes and Certain Related Matters in Ireland.

Clann is assisting individuals affected by or involved with the treatment of unmarried mothers and their children to provide evidence to the ongoing commission.

For current witnesses already engaged in the process with the organizations, this means that they must respond to any questions from Hogan Lovells law group about the drafts of their statement, or their consent form as soon as possible.

New witnesses should email statements@clannproject.org as soon as they can if they need further assistance drafting their statements, as the process can take at least a number of weeks to complete.

All witnesses who wish to have their experiences included in the group submission will need to have their statement completed by 31st August.

To arrange a free witness statement visit clannproject.org.

Irish road bowling is thought to date back to the 1600s when the native Irish rolled the cannon balls of Cromwell’s soldiers down moonlight boreens.

But now you’re far more likely to encounter people playing in the small town of Charleston, W.Va., where it’s thought that Civil War soldiers of Irish descent introduced locals to the game.



Historian Dan Harvey concluded in 2003, “It is highly likely, indeed probable, that Union or Confederate troops of Irish origin played road bowling between battles during the American Civil war - as they did worldwide ... with many foreign armies."

All participants need is a road a mile and a half long, a ball and an arm to throw it. The aim is to get the ball down the road with as few throws as possible.

Stephen Wallington of the Irish Road Bowling Association told WCHS TV that the sport was an inclusive one, requiring no great level of physical fitness.

“It's something for everybody,” he said. “We've had some events where we've had people in wheelchairs come out and play, so it's a sport where you don't have to be physical, you don't have to work out. it just gets you outside and you're out for a nice stroll, that's ultimately what it is."

Throughout the summer months competitions take place in certain areas of natural beauty, such as Pipestem Resort State Park and Coopers Rock State Forest.

And the game is not just played in West Virginia, clubs also exist in Boston and New York City. For more information, visit the club’s website here.

Sybil Connolly, who designed the dress worn by First Lady Jackie Kennedy in her White House portrait, took the comforts of Irish country fashions and showed them to the world, becoming a highly influential figure in the fashion industry for over five decades with thanks to her creative adaptations of Irish traditional clothing styles.

Connolly, who was born in Wales in 1921 to an Irish father and a half-Welsh, half-English mother, moved to Ireland as a teenager before her fashion career kicked off with a move to London in 1938 while still in her teens.

The granddaughter of a country squire and scholar, she worked as an apprentice at prestigious dressmaking establishment Bradley’s, even holding pins for the Dowager Queen Mary's dress fittings in Buckingham Palace.

Returning to Dublin in 1940, Connelly worked as a buyer in a specialty shop, quickly replacing the original designer when they emigrated to the US and it was here that she was discovered by a group of matrons from the Philadelphia Fashion Group in 1952 while they spent some time Dublin.  

From here her star began to rise as the Dublin-based designer became more recognized for creating haute couture from Irish textiles such as Carrickmacross lace and handwoven Irish Donegal tweeds.

With her use of tweed, crochet, vibrantly colored lace and interesting silhouettes, the Irish designer attracted the attention of Harper's Bazaar editor Carmel Snow, who would prove instrumental in her career, flying over press and buyers to view Connolly’s collection.

Bringing her collection to New York first in 1953, one of Connolly’s dress designs appeared on the cover of Life magazine captioned “Irish Invade Fashion World” and it was clear she had made it.

Connelly championed soft and casual clothes at a time when the Parisian designers were strictly producing rigid, constructed designs. For the Irish designer, however, the Irish traditions allowed her to create clothes that had life and suited the movement of the body.

“I must see movement in a dress,” she once said. “A woman’s body is inside. It breathes. It moves.”

Read more: The first Irish woman to have the fashion world at her feet: Sybil Connolly

Connolly became known as the first woman to have the fashion world at her feet, successfully targeting the American market and changing the way that sophisticated women dressed with her innovative designs.

Her own couture fashion line launched in 1957 when she was still just 36 years old and she moved into a new building at 71 Merrion Square. Describing her headquarters in Dublin as “a shop window for Ireland”, she employed 100 women who wove tweed and crocheted lace from their home.

Connelly was an integral part of reviving the old Irish crafts, a revival that is still feeling her influence today. She took inspiration from the way that Irish country women dressed and the comfort they had in their clothes while they carried out their daily routine on farms and in cottages, reworking them to suit urban and international tastes.

Such inspiration included the reworking of a hooded cloth worn in Kinsale, Co. Cork, as a velvet cape, and the unbleached wool yarn used in Aran sweaters being reimagined in unusual sports outfits.

Ireland was not always happy with their traditional designs being interpreted in this way, however, and although Connelly always sought to keep her prices lower than other European labels, some people were not taken with what they felt was the exploitation of the nation’s peasantry.

Read more: Top Irish fashion influencers for 2017

An active designer until her death, Connelly included Jackie Kennedy, Julie Andrews, Elizabeth Taylor, and the Rockefellers among those who wore her designs, even designing modern habits for three orders of Catholic nuns in Ireland. The designer was, in fact, highly religious and a priest had to bless each collection before its presentation.

It was her pleated linen for which she was most famous, however, and it was in one of these dresses that one of the world’s greatest style icons, Jackie Kennedy, appeared in her White House portrait. The incredible technique involved closely pleating up to nine yards of linen handkerchiefs to produce one yard of delicate fabric.

Following the decades-long success, Connelly faltered slightly in her later years refusing to accept that good fashion had to change and denying the growing trend of the miniskirt. She stayed true to the advice she had received from Christian Dior that a “ woman should show her curves, not her joints” and also refused to embrace the changes in fashion that saw women now wearing trousers!  

Sybil Connolly died at her home on Dublin’s prestigious Merrion Square on May 6, 1998.

H/T:The New York Times

When we picture JFK, we usually call to mind a handsome, presidential portrait. President Kennedy giving a speech, waving from the steps of an airplane, side by side with Jackie, looking into the distance in a moment of contemplation or laughter. 

But what about Kennedy as a youg man? Five photos of John F. Kennedy in his school days, including two shots never before seen by the public, were up for grabs in an online auction at the end of summer 2015.

Organized by Boston-based RR Auction, the online lot contained candid photos of the future president as he jokes around with his friends during high school, as well as more formal shots of his graduation day from the elite Choate prep school.

Taken during the early to mid-1930s, when Kennedy was between 14 and 18 years old, the exclusive snaps show JFK the joker, the young man whose father did not think he would be a presidential candidate.

One unique aspect of these photographs, however, is their origin – they come from the family’s own photo albums. JFK’s father, Joseph P. Kennedy, took the photos from the family’s scrapbook and delivered them to biographer Gene Schoor in 1961 while the writer was working on “Young John Kennedy,” published in June 1963.

The photos were pulled from the Kennedy family scrapbook with traces of the glue still on the backs as well as typed captions of who’s pictured and when they were taken.

The lot even contained the typed memo on official White House letterhead sent from Joseph Kennedy to Schoor when he forwarded on the photos.

“From: The personal diary of Pres. John F. Kennedy scrapbook & photo material given Gene Schoor by [J.F.K. crossed out] Amb. Joe Kennedy at the White House, January 1961,” the memo reads.

Schoor only used three of the photos in his biography, however, meaning that two of the lot have never before been seen in public: a photo of Kennedy with his father and a sister – ‘Kick' on the deck of a ship; and one of Kennedy with many of his friends at the prestigious Choate in Connecticut, including Lem Billings (who would later work on his campaign) and Bud Wynne.

“An absolutely outstanding, one-of-a-kind collection of original material from Kennedy’s formative years,” said Bobby Livingston, Executive VP at RR Auction.

“We’ve seen JFK at Choate– but you don’t really see images like this, The one outside his house with him and all his buddies – that’s what he was known for. Jack as a young person was always thought of as a cut-up.'

Kennedy was, in fact, seen as quite the jokester while he attended Choate, infamously setting off a firework in a school bathroom during his earlier years there.

When the school headmaster referred to him and his accomplices as “muckers” following the incident, JFK wore the term with pride and nicknamed his group of friends “The Muckers Club.”

“He was mischievous at Choate,” Livingston added. “Joe, his father, didn’t see him as the presidential candidate. That was his older brother, Joe Jr. So he’s relaxed in these pictures.”

That doesn’t mean he didn’t show some promise during his teenage years. Despite his brushes with trouble, JFK was still voted “Most Likely to Succeed” by his classmates upon his graduation in 1935.

The remaining photos include an image of him standing proudly in his robe on graduation day. as well as a full-length image of JFK atop the roof of the Kennedy estate in Palm Beach, FL in 1935; and a playful image of Kennedy with his roommate Rip Horton as members of Choate’s drama club during a rehearsal.

The complete lot included a first edition hardback copy of Schoor’s book “Young John Kennedy” where three of the images were first published.

The online bidding for the memorabilia began on August 19 and continued until September 16, 2015. 

The auctioneers placed a conservative estimate of between $1,500 and $2,000 on the lot of photographs, book and memo but said they would not be surprised if that was greatly surpassed.

The lot wound up selling for $3,660.30. 

Previous Kennedy items auctioned by the company have earned bids up to $39,600.

H/T: Daily Mail

* Originally published August 2015. 

John F. Kennedy would have celebrated his 100th birthday on Memorial Day, Monday, May 29, 2017. In tribute to JFK, the 35th President of the United States, and his centennial year, IrishCentral is looking back on the life and times of the charismatic and intriguing Irish-American leader; from his early years to his rise to the presidency, to his untimely assassination in November 1963 at just 46 years old. 

Here we look at claims Kennedy predicted he would be assassinated. For more on JFK and the Kennedy family, you can visit our special topic page. 

President John F. Kennedy’s secret interviews with his wife claim he warned his assassination would safeguard his legacy around a year before his death.
 
JFK made the prediction about his reputation privately to his wife Jackie Kennedy.
 
Previously unheard conversations involving the First Lady in the months after JFK’s assassination reveal the president’s theory.
 
The conversations date back to 1964 when Jacqueline Kennedy had in-depth conversations with historian Arthur M Schlesinger Jnr.
 
Professor Robert Dallek, a popular Kennedy historian made the discovery after closely examining pages of “Jacqueline Kennedy’s Oral History.”
 
“(JFK) said to Mrs. Kennedy after his success in the Cuban Missile Crisis: ’If anyone’s going to kill me, it should happen now,”’ Professor Dallek said.

 
Dallek said JFK had been told by a historian that Abraham Lincoln’s legacy may not have been as great if he had lived longer.
 
“He had heard a lecture at the White House by distinguished historian David Herbert Donald, a Lincoln, Civil War expert,” Prof. Dallek said.
 
“At that lecture, Kennedy asked Professor Donald if Lincoln had lived, would his reputation be as great as it currently is in the United States? And predictably, Donald said probably not because he would have had to have wrestled with the problems of reconstruction, the post-Civil War era.
 
“And Kennedy remembering that said to Mrs. Kennedy after his success in the Cuban Missile Crisis, if anyone’s going to kill me, it should happen now."
 
The democratic president JFK was shot on November 22, 1963, as his open-top motorcade traveled through Dallas, Texas.
 
After his death, his wife gave seven undisclosed interviews during which she spoke about her husband’s involvement in the Cuban Missile Crisis; her role as First Lady; the president's plan for a second term and family and married life in the White House.
 
To mark the 50th anniversary of the Kennedy administration, the family released both the interview transcripts and the original audio recordings.

* Originally published in 2011.