President Barack Obama and his family have left Ireland for Germany where one of his famous predecessors, John F Kennedy made his memorable Ich Bin ein Berliner speech.
While the President was restricted to the North for the duration of his stay his wife, the US First Lady, Michelle Obama and the couples's two children spent much of the time in the Republic.
When JFK made his visit to Ireland 50 years ago this month much of the event was covered by Lensmen and the insuperable photographer Andy Farren, some of whose images from the time featured in a special 50th anniversary supplement put together for the Irish Independent.
Irish Photo Archive has a wide range of images of the JFK visit available for purchase and framing if desired.
President Barack Obama is in the northern part of Ireland at the moment where he is speaking to an assembled audience at Belfast's Waterfront Hall.
The First Lady of the US, Michelle Obama was given a rapturous reception when she arrived to speak in the same venue.
The presidential visit coincides with the 50th anniversary of President John F Kennedy's arrival in Ireland in 1963. Then Lensmen were to the fore in capturing imagery of important moments for the benefit of posterity. Today a half century after the event Lensmen's endeavors are still being acknowledged, with their coverage of the 1963 Presidential visit featuring extensively at the weekend in the Irish Independent.
A Lensmen production that featured on the front cover of the Irish Independent weekend supplement on 15/06/2013
Capturing the images for Lensmen was the company's joint owner Andy Farren one of the country's finest snappers. Lensmen had been retained by the government of the day to put together the official album.
Andy Farren snapping away
Lensmen have now licenced the Irish
Photo Archive to digitise and preserve Lensmen’s extensive collection. Last year the significant task of digitising the collection
began, up until then the archive had been relatively untouched. The hope is
that over sixty years of work and sixty years of Irish life will be
made accessible to everyone through the website www.irishphotoarchive.ie and this vast, historically important collection
will be preserved for generations to come.
To that end the Irish
Photo Archive has been steadily scanning and uploading digital images from the
archive to the website.
We are especially pleased to be in possession
of a series of images from the visit of John F. Kennedy to Ireland in 1963.
These cover a number of the events that occurred during the visit such as the
trip to Dunganstown to meet his relatives, his cavalcade through Dublin and
many more. All of these images can be viewed on the website and prints are
available for purchase both in Ireland and internationally.
