Kennedy family members came together on Monday to mourn the loss of 22-year-old Saoirse Kennedy Hill.
The funeral service took place at Our Lady of Victory Church in Massachusetts, close to the Kennedy compound on Cape Cod, followed by a private burial at Saint Francis Xavier’s cemetery in Centerville.
The only daughter of Courtney Kennedy Hill and Paul Hill died from an apparent overdose at the family home in Hyannis Port on 1st August, though a toxicology report is still pending.
She was preparing to start her senior year at Boston College. At the funeral, her father Paul Hill referred to her as "the love of my life."
A family statement released ahead of the funeral read, "[Saoirse] cared deeply about friends and family, especially her mother Courtney, her father Paul, her stepmother Stephanie, and her grandmother Ethel, who said, 'The world is a little less beautiful today.'"
Though the service was private, reporter Jason Kolnos shared a poem from the funeral and lyrics from a Beyonce song, XO, which were reportedly included in the program: “In the darkest night I’ll search through the crowd, Your face is all that I see, I'll give you everything, Baby love me lights out.”
Saoirse was the granddaughter of the late Senator Robert F. Kennedy, the brother of former president John F. Kennedy.
Her mother, Courtney Kennedy Hill, is a human rights activist and one of Robert Kennedy and Ethel Skakel Kennedy's eleven children.
Her family has been paying tribute to her throughout the week, posting heartfelt Instagram messages. And now, her uncle RFK Jr. published his full eulogy on Medium.
He writes, “because she was an only child, she became a sister or daughter to a hundred Kennedys, Shrivers, and Lawfords. We all considered her our own,” adding that “she had a knack for friendship that put her at the center of an enormous network of our relatives, and their friends, and their friends.”
RFK Jr. calls her “fearlessly honest” and talks about her struggle with depression, which she wrote about honestly while in high school at Deerfield Academy.
The young Kennedys
