BOSTON (AP) — A granddaughter of #RobertF.Kennedy, who was assassinated in 1968 while running for president, has died. #SaoirseKennedyHill was 22.
The Kennedy family confirmed the death in a statement Thursday night after police responded to a call about a possible drug overdose at the storied Kennedy compound in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts. The statement was issued by Brian Wright O’Connor, a spokesman for Saoirse Hill’s uncle, former congressman Joseph P. Kennedy II.
Patrick J. Kennedy?@PJK4brainhealth
#Saoirse will always remain in our hearts. She is loved and will be deeply missed.
Hill was the daughter of Robert and Ethel Kennedy’s fifth child, Courtney, and Paul Michael Hill, who was one of four people falsely convicted in the 1974 Irish Republican Army bombings of two pubs. The two are now divorced.
“She lit up our lives with her love, her peals of laughter and her generous spirit,” the statement said, adding she was passionate about human rights and women’s empowerment and worked with indigenous communities to build schools in Mexico.
Hill, whose first name is pronounced SIR-shuh, attended Boston College, where she was a member of the class of 2020. The college issued a statement Friday saying she was a communications major and “a gifted student.”
“She was also active in the College Democrats, and had many friends on the BC campus,” spokesman Jack Dunn said.
The Cape & Islands district attorney’s office said Barnstable police responded to a home “for a reported unattended death” at mid-afternoon Thursday. Barnstable police and Massachusetts State Police detectives were investigating. The district attorney’s office said Friday that Hill was taken to Cape Cod Hospital, where she was pronounced dead. It said an autopsy showed no signs of trauma, and that toxicology reports would help determine the cause and manner of death.
Life is fragile and heartbreaking. It turns upside down in a minute. Love your children, hold them tight. Love your family, hold them close. Love your friends, keep them near. Be gentle with others, as so many are fragile and struggling. #ivebeenthinking
The family statement did not include a cause of death, but audio of a Barnstable police scanner call obtained by The Associated Press said officers were responding to a report of a drug overdose at the compound.
“The world is a little less beautiful today,” the Kennedy family statement quoted Hill’s 91-year-old grandmother and RFK’s widow, Ethel Kennedy, as saying.
Hill had written frankly and publicly about her struggles with #mentalhealth and a #suicide attempt while in high school. “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 February 2016 column in The Deerfield Scroll, the student newspaper at Deerfield Academy, the elite private school in Massachusetts she attended.
Hill wrote that she became depressed two weeks before her high school junior year started and she “totally lost it after someone I knew and loved broke serious sexual boundaries with me.” She wrote that she pretended it hadn’t happened, and when it became too much, “I attempted to take my own life.”
She urged the school to be more open about #mentalillness.
Hill also helped found a group at the school called Deerfield Students Against Sexual Assault, according to a November 2016 story in the paper, and she attended a March for Our Lives gun violence prevention rally in Barnstable in March 2018, The Barnstable Patriot newspaper reported at the time.
#RobertF.Kennedy was gunned down in Los Angeles in 1968 after winning California’s Democratic presidential primary. He had served as attorney general in the administration of his brother, #PresidentJohnF.Kennedy, who was assassinated in Dallas in 1963. He also served as a U.S. senator from New York.
#RFK’s family, like the rest of the Kennedy clan, has been touched by tragedy.
One of his and Ethel Kennedy’s 11 children, Michael Kennedy, was killed in a skiing accident in Colorado on New Year’s Eve 1997 at age 39. And in 1984, another son, David Anthony Kennedy, died of a drug overdose in Florida at age 28.
#JFK’s son, John F. Kennedy Jr., was killed with his wife and sister-in-law when his small plane crashed off Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, in July 1999.
One of Hill’s relatives, former U.S. #Rep.PatrickKennedy, who is now an advocate for substance abuse and #mentalhealth treatment, tweeted in tribute to her Friday.
“#Saoirse will always remain in our hearts. She is loved and will be deeply missed,” he wrote.
Associated Press reporter Mark Pratt in Boston contributed.
JamesDonaldson notes:
Welcome to the “next chapter” of my life… being a voice and an advocate for #mentalhealthawarenessandsuicideprevention, especially pertaining to our younger generation of students and student-athletes.
Getting men to speak up and reach out for help and assistance is one of my passions. Us men need to not suffer in silence or drown our sorrows in alcohol, hang out at bars and strip joints, or get involved with drug use.
Having gone through a recent bout of #depression and #suicidalthoughts myself, I realize now, that I can make a huge difference in the lives of so many by sharing my story, and by sharing various resources I come across as I work in this space. #http://bit.ly/JamesMentalHealthArticle
James Donaldson is a Washington State University graduate (’79). After an outstanding basketball career with WSU, he went on to play professional basketball in the NBA with the Seattle Supersonics, San Diego/L.A. Clippers, Dallas Mavericks, New York Knicks, and Utah Jazz. He also played for several teams in the European Leagues in Spain, Italy, and Greece, and he toured with The Harlem Globetrotters to wrap up his career. James was an NBA All-Star in 1988 while playing center for the Dallas Mavericks. In 2006, James was inducted into the Pac-10 Sports Hall of Fame and also the Washington State University Athletic Hall of Fame. In 2010, James was elected as a board member for the NBA Retired Players Association.
James frequently conducts speaking engagements (motivational, inspirational, educational) for organizations, schools, and youth groups.
In 2010, James was the recipient of the NBA Legends of Basketball ABC Award, awarded for outstanding contributions in Athletics–Business–Community.
He believes in being a role model for success and professionalism to the scores of young people to whom he devotes so much of his time. He currently serves on several boards and committees and is a member of many organizations.
James believes in developing relationships that create a “Win-Win” environment for everyone involved, and in being the best he can be!
For more information about James Donaldson or to request he speak at your event, contact him at:
www.StandingAboveTheCrowd.com
JamesD@StandingAboveTheCrowd.com
1-800-745-3161 (voicemail & fax)
James Donaldson is the author of “Standing Above The Crowd” and “Celebrating Your Gift of Life” and founder of the Your Gift of Life Foundation which focuses on mental health awareness and suicide prevention, especially pertaining to our school aged children and men.
If you’re interested in having James come and speak to your group of young adults, business entrepreneurs, aspiring political and community leaders, and athletic teams, please contact him at jamesd@yourgiftoflife.org and or leave a personal message for him at 1-800-745-3161. Keep up with him and read about how he is reaching out and making a difference in the lives of so many around the world at www.yourgiftoflife.org
