The luck of the Irish might surface on St. Patrick's Day, but it evades the Kennedy family, America's best-known Irish dynasty
- Written by Mary Burke, Professor of English and Irish Literature concentration coordinator, University of Connecticut
A portrait of the Kennedy family taken in Hyannis, Mass., in the 1930s. Bachrach/Getty ImagesJohn F. Kennedy, whose ancestors left Ireland during the potato famine of the mid-19th century, was famously the first United States president of Catholic Irish descent.
When Americans narrowly elected Kennedy in 1960, anti-Catholic bias was still part of...