Rep. Kennedy Assails British Rule in Ulster as He Wraps Up 4-Day Trip

The British have no right to “occupy” Northern Ireland, U.S. Rep. Joseph Kennedy told a cheering crowd Saturday at the conclusion of his four-day visit to the region.

In response, Britain’s energy secretary said Kennedy “should get back to Massachusetts as quickly as possible.”

The 35-year-old Massachusetts Democrat, who returned to the United States Saturday evening, was speaking from the steps of the Wexford Municipal Hall, near his ancestral home in this Irish Republic town, 40 miles south of Dublin. Several hundred had gathered to see him.

“The British have no right to occupy the north of Ireland,” Kennedy said. “The occupying forces are telling us what to do, what to eat, who to pray to, how to think.”

Kennedy, son of the late Sen. Robert F. Kennedy and nephew of assassinated President John F. Kennedy, drew more loud cheers when he said he couldn’t visit the land of his roots without exploring the problems of Northern Ireland.

“You wouldn’t be satisfied with me if I came here simply as a tourist,” he said. “We all have brothers in the north and they need our help and support.”

But Energy Secretary Cecil Parkinson objected to Kennedy’s views and said on a British Broadcasting Corp. program that withdrawing British troops would result in further bloodshed.

“He should get back to Massachusetts as quickly as possible and I hope we never set eyes on him again,” Parkinson said.

Saturday was the second time in two days that Kennedy had criticized Britain’s role in Ulster, where sectarian violence has claimed nearly 2,700 lives since 1969. The outlawed Irish Republican Army is fighting to oust Britain from the predominantly Protestant province and unite it with the Irish Republic.

In Northern Ireland on Friday, Kennedy called on Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s government “to change its attitude to the Irish Catholics of this nation.”