The House of Kennedy(78)
In 2002, Courtney and Paul decide to move their family to Ireland, where they can bring their daughter up in a “less manic” environment. “Being here,” Courtney notes, “is the best medication I can think of,” for her lingering depression. And Saoirse, both her parents say, is “very Irish.” The marriage doesn’t last, however, and when the couple separates in 2006, Courtney and Saoirse, then eight years old, move back to the United States.
Courtney’s cousin Timothy Shriver calls his niece “an only child with a hundred brothers and sisters,” and her uncle Bobby Jr. agrees, saying, “She became a sister or daughter to a hundred Kennedys, Shrivers, and Lawfords. We all considered her our own.”
Bobby Jr. affectionately calls her “an outgoing imp with a rebellious nature, an irreverence towards authority and deep commitment to mischief,” attributes he says are likely inherited from her parents—Courtney and Paul.
Nevertheless, like her mother, Saoirse suffers from depression. At age eighteen, she bravely writes a personal essay in Deerfield Academy’s paper, the Deerfield Scroll. “Although I was mostly a happy child, I suffered bouts of deep sadness that felt like a heavy boulder on my chest,” Saoirse explains, urging her high school classmates and community to be more compassionate. “We are all either struggling or know someone who is battling an illness; let’s come together to make our community more inclusive and comfortable.”
Saoirse also helps found Deerfield Students Against Sexual Assault, motivated by her own experience. “I did the worst thing a victim can do,” she reveals, “and I pretended it hadn’t happened. This all became too much, and I attempted to take my own life.”
She graduates in 2016, moving on to Boston College as a communications major and vice president of the College Democrats. Bill Stone, a fellow BC student, describes Saoirse as “very kind, funny, bright, smart,” but adds, “I knew she had her demons.”
She also possesses great empathy. In 2014, on the thirtieth anniversary of her uncle David’s death more than a decade before she was born, she addresses David online: “You were a kind, gentle spirit that went through unimaginable struggles in your life,” she writes. “It saddens me to know that we will never meet in this world, but I know I will see you up in heaven with my grandfather, Uncle Michael, and other family members.”
Her words come true far sooner than anyone could have expected.
Twenty-two-year-old Saoirse spends the night of July 31, 2019, in Hyannis Port—finishing up some schoolwork and watching the Democratic presidential debates with her ninety-one-year-old Grandma Ethel. Later, although “she wasn’t a partier or anything,” a family source notes, she heads out with a friend for a night of karaoke and dancing, ending with a sunrise swim.
And then, as her uncle Bobby put it, “Saoirse woke up with God.”
Emergency workers respond to a call at the Kennedy compound for a suspected overdose at 2:30 p.m. on August 1, 2019, but it’s already too late. Though unresponsive, Saoirse is rushed to the hospital, where she is declared dead. Three months later, on November 1, 2019, toxicology results reveal “methadone and ethanol toxicity as well as other prescription medications were found in Hill’s system,” though her death is ruled accidental.
“If anyone ever wondered whether God loves the Kennedys,” Bobby Jr. says during his eulogy for Saoirse in Our Lady of Victory Church on August 5, 2019, “the proof is that he gave us Saoirse, this brilliant beam of light and laughter.”
While there have been a few other sad losses (Ted’s daughter, Kara Kennedy, age fifty-one, and Patricia’s son Christopher Lawford, age sixty-three, both die unexpectedly from heart failure in 2011 and 2018, respectively), Saoirse’s tragic death reignites public curiosity about the family, whose younger generation is more often known for who they’re dating than for what political roles they may be taking.
The juiciest gossip stories involve Bobby Jr.’s son Conor, who dates singer Taylor Swift in 2012 while he’s still a high school student at Deerfield Academy; his cousin Patrick Schwarzenegger (son of Eunice’s daughter Maria Shriver and Arnold Schwarzenegger, the movie-star-turned-politician), who has a relationship with pop star Miley Cyrus in 2015—while his sister Christina Schwarzenegger simultaneously dates Miley’s brother Braison Cyrus; and their older sister, Katherine Schwarzenegger, is best known for marrying actor Chris Pratt in the summer of 2019.
John F. Kennedy biographer Robert Dallek remarks that the Kennedys are “a case of triumph and tragedy, great success and terrible suffering, and in many ways it’s the American story” especially poignant in today’s more jaded era. People are “reverting back to the Kennedys,” he opines, “to hold on to something that they admire.”
Although there is a brief blip in 2012 when Ted’s son Patrick chose not to seek reelection to the Rhode Island House of Representatives, W Magazine points out that, “Every year between 1947 and 2011, and then from 2013 onwards, at least one Kennedy family member has held federal elective office.” It’s Bobby Jr.’s son Joe Kennedy III who steps in to continue the legacy; in 2013, at age thirty-two, he takes over retiring Barney Frank’s seat in Congress, and is reelected in 2014 and 2016. “All eyes have been on Joe to continue to carry the torch for the family,” biographer J. Randy Taraborrelli points out.