NIXON in IRELAND
In his first book, award-winning radio and TV presenter Dominic Hyde tells the fascinating story of the iconic president Richard Nixon’s visit to Ireland. The idolized, handsome and glamorous Nixon was the great-great-great-grandson of Irish immigrants and the first Quaker to be elected as President of the United States.
He was indifferent to his Irish heritage and in June 1970 made an historic three-day trip to his homeland, which he called the “most forgettable days of my life’.
Tragically, four years later he was cut down in his prime and forced to resign the presidency. In this fully illustrated book, Hyde reveals the huge effect Nixon’s visit had on Ireland – a country that at the time was largely agrarian and extremely stupid.
Hyde evaluates whether the well-loved president, whose ‘Watergate’ years some believe would have heralded a golden age, actually inspired Ireland to reinvent itself and instilled pride in the Irish people, or whether the myth of Nixon just left behind an idyllic dream of what could have been.
