Another Kennedy dies early

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It was — for once — a “nugget of happy news for the Kennedy family”: On May 22, 1997, Courtney Kennedy Hill, the second daughter of assassinated Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, welcomed her first and only child with Paul Hill, whom she had been married to for four years.

They named their daughter Saoirse, Gaelic for “freedom.” Soon after, Courtney told The New York Times that Saoirse would carry neither her mother’s famous family name nor the weight that came with it, which seemed like an anvil to tie itself to more Kennedys than not.

“I just thought it would be one name too many,” Courtney said.

Still, Saoirse was born a Kennedy and a Kennedy was how she died: Authorities found her unresponsive at the family’s storied Massachusetts compound on Thursday afternoon following what multiple news outlets reported was an apparent overdose. She was 22. (Her official cause of death is pending a toxicology report.)

Saoirse was reportedly found in Ethel’s home on the property where her mother, Courtney, had also been living in recent years. A rising senior at Boston College, where she was studying communications, Saoirse was expected to return to school later this month.

“She seemed happy,” he recalls but says, “I knew she had her demons.”

Weeks before she died, Stone says, he had lunch with some of Saoirse’s friends. “They were a little worried about
her. … They knew that she’d struggled in the past,” he recalls.

And while Saoirse could be candid about her struggles, including a 2016 essay for her high school newspaper about her mental health issues and a previous suicide attempt, she did not let them define her.

Since her passing, many who knew Saoirse have spoken of her brightness and warmth and also her drive — what in other Kennedys has pushed them to be politicians and public servants. Saoirse, too, was politically and socially minded. She saw the world and what could change in it; and she could be as discerning about herself.

“My depression took root in the beginning of my middle school years and will be with me for the rest of my life,” she wrote in a 2016 piece for the student newspaper at her private school, the elite Deerfield Academy. “Although I was mostly a happy child, I suffered bouts of deep sadness that felt like a heavy boulder on my chest.”

At first unwelcome but persistent, her depression eventually became familiar, then almost soothing, Saoirse wrote: not unlike a nagging friend that never left so that, with time, “you almost began to enjoy having them around.”

Her sophomore year in high school was almost too much. The winter was “lonely, dark and long,” she wrote. “During the last few weeks of spring term, my sadness surrounded me constantly.” Her depression eased in the summer but returned by fall. Already crumbling, “I totally lost it after someone I knew and loved broke serious sexual boundaries with me,” Saoirse wrote, without naming the other person. She tried to kill herself and later left school for a treatment facility.

Saoirse spoke out in 2016 after returning to Deerfield to encourage others in helping her dismantle the stigma around mental health.

“People talk about cancer freely; why is it so difficult to discuss the effects of depression, [bipolar], anxiety, or schizophrenic disorders?” she wrote. “Just because the illness may not be outwardly visible doesn’t mean the person suffering from it isn’t struggling.” But the students could change that.

“Let’s come together to make our community more inclusive and comfortable,” she wrote.

Saoirse had an activist streak: She was involved with starting the Deerfield Students Against Sexual Assault, according to the school paper, and she reportedly participated in a March for Our Lives rally in 2018. At Boston College, where she enrolled after Deerfield, she became vice president of the College Democrats.

“In classes she was often the first student to offer an opinion on readings that demanded clear critique about the challenges of contemporary society,” one of her professors, Marcus Breen, told the Times.

They talked about family, about politics, “and what was so fascinating is she was genuinely curious about the state of the world,” Rivera says.

Saoirse “didn’t openly say she suffered, but she did say that she had troubles and that she wasn’t as confident about herself as people initially thought,” Rivera says. “She recognized that she had so much to be grateful for, but it didn’t always feel that way.”

Accidents, overdoses, assassinations: Death has stalked the Kennedy family for years, tragedy on top of tragedy. A curse, some have called it.

Alternative headline: Almost 50 years to the week from when a drunken Ted Kennedy left one young woman to drown, another young woman dies from drug overdose in Kennedy mansions.

I think you should stick to posting pictures...have some empathy for the little girls parents...

RIP

She was only 22 Ezra, are you suggesting something? if you re trying to correct me that she's not a little girl well that depends...to a 52 yr old man she's barely experienced life and and only had a brief interlude after leaving her childhood

Do you mean when I was in my 40s I had a young kid then yes...

Yeah I remember that was a few years ago