(1823 – 1858) the youngest son of a tenement farmer, was born in Dunganstown, New Ross, County Wexford, Ireland in 1823.
The 1840s saw Ireland in the grip of the Great Famine when the failure of the potato crop and the resulting famine caused hundreds of thousands of Irish to leave Ireland in search of a better life in the New World.
In 1848 Patrick decided to join the exodus and headed to the port of New Ross, 4 miles north of Dunganstown, on the River Barrow.
At the time New Ross was a very busy inland port for those fleeing the great famine. Thousands of people passed through New Ross boarding emigration ships on their way to America, Canada, Britain, Australia and New Zealand.
The map on the right is taken from the Index to the Townland Survey of the County of Wexford. Dunganstown lies in the southwest corner of the map and the port of New Ross lies to the north on the River Barrow, which runs north-south defining the boundary between County Wexford and county Kilkenny.
The first part of Patrick’s journey took him to Liverpool in England. From there he set sail for Boston, Massachusetts aboard the ship Washington Irving. Numerous sources report that it was aboard this ship that he met his future wife, Bridget Murphy who was also from County Wexford.
When JFK visited New Ross and Dunganstown in 1963, he remarked “When my great grandfather left here to become a cooper in East Boston, he carried nothing with him except two things: a strong religious faith and a strong desire for liberty. I am glad to say that all his grand children have valued that inheritance”.
The Kennedy family homestead in Dunganstown exists to this day and is still owned and run by Kennedy family descendants.
