1951

The IFC celebrates its 50th anniversary at the Palmer House Hilton. In attendance is Rear Admiral Daniel V. Gallery, who commanded the ship that captured the German submarine, U-505, that is now on display at Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry.

1954

Amid controversy, Senator Joseph R. McCarthy of Wisconsin is invited to speak at the IFC’s St. Patrick’s Day celebration. During his ominous and bombastic address, McCarthy defends his attacks on suspected Communists by saying: “St. Patrick drove the snakes out of Ireland, and the snakes didn’t like his methods either.”

1956

Massachusetts Senator John Fitzgerald Kennedy, 39, is the guest speaker at the St. Patrick’s Day Dinner, where he delivers a stirring oration about the evils of colonialism. In a thinly veiled reference to the issue of Irish sovereignty, Kennedy urges the U.S. to “speak out boldly for freedom for all people, whether they are denied that freedom by an iron curtain or by a paper curtain of colonial ties and constitutional manipulations.”