CHRISTMAS EVE, traditionally a time for travelling home to loved ones. Train stations, bus depots, roads and airports hit peak traffic as people try to get on their way.

This photograph shows how the death of US president John F Kennedy in November 1963 added a moment of poignancy to the chaos at New York International Airport exactly fifty years ago today.

It pictures workmen changing the sign at the Van Wyck expressway entrance to the huge air hub just moments after it had been officially conferred with its new name: John F. Kennedy International Airport.

Those travelling through the airport that Christmas Eve fifty years ago would have been the first to pass under the new sign and been reminded of a tumultuous year for the US.

To all the Irish diaspora in the US and elsewhere tonight, even if you don’t get to travel home through JFK – or at all – have a safe and happy Christmas.

Images: PA Archive

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