 He would say, Ireland means nothing to me. Ireland never did a thing for the Kennedys. Everything that we have came from this country. I watched my uncle become the first Irish Catholic president of our country. I watched that struggle, the Ku Klux Klan burning crosses. I ran into all kinds of anti-Catholic bigotry during that campaign when I was a seven-year-old boy. I was at the convention in 1960.