Saoirse Kennedy Hill Was Buried Next to Robert F Kennedy Jr's Wife Mary

Four days after her tragic death, Saoirse Kennedy Hill was laid to rest next to her aunt, Mary Richardson Kennedy at Saint Francis Xavier’s cemetery in Centerville.

The Kennedy family said their last goodbye to 22-year-old Saoirse Kennedy Hill on Monday.

BURIED NEXT TO HER AUNT

Her funeral took place in the morning at the Our Lady of Victory Church, not far from the Kennedy family’s compound; and she was later buried in a private service attended by her family at nearby Saint Francis Xavier’s cemetery in Centerville.

According to People, Saoirse was buried next to her aunt, Mary Richardson Kennedy. Mary was the second wife of Saoirse’s uncle Robert F. Kennedy Jr. from 1994 until 2010. She died by suicide in 2012.

“They’ve had so much tragedy in the family that it’s got to be hard for them to reconcile it all,” said J. Randy Taraborrelli—the family’s biographer—. “You go on with your life, but you carry it, you carry these people, and your heart is always broken.”

A TRAGIC LOSS

Saoirse was found unresponsive on Thursday at the Kennedy compound and pronounced dead at a local hospital soon after. Although her death is still pending a toxicology report, several news outlets suspect she suffered an overdose.

The family confirmed the sad news with a statement that read,

“Our hearts are shattered by the loss of our beloved Saoirse. Her life was filled with hope, promise, and love. She cared deeply about friends and family, especially her mother Courtney, her father Paul, her stepmother Stephanie, and her grandmother Ethel.”

Ethel Kennedy, the matriarch of the family and widow of assassinated Sen. Robert F. Kennedy said of her granddaughter’s passing: “The world is a little less beautiful today.”

Saoirse was the only daughter of Courtney Kennedy Hill with husband Paull Hill.

REMEMBERING SAOIRSE

Family and friends remember Saoirse as a smart, thoughtful and warm young woman who had a knack for helping others and was passionate by “the causes of human rights and women’s empowerment.” She also enjoyed volunteer work and worked with indigenous communities to build schools in Mexico.

Bill Stone, one of Saoirse’s friends from Boston College, where she was a rising senior, told People that the day before her death Saoirse “seemed happy” in her social media stories.

“I knew she had her demons. I knew she struggled with those for a while,” said Stone. “Still, she tried to have a super positive attitude about the challenges she was facing and tried not to let them rule her.”

HER STRUGGLES WITH DEPRESSION

Saoirse was open and honest about her mental health issues.

In 2016, she wrote a piece for a student newspaper in high school talking about her depression and mentioned a suicide attempt after someone she knew and loved “broke serious sexual boundaries” with her.

In her piece, Saoirse encouraged her schoolmates to revoke the stigmatization around mental health illnesses. She wrote:

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

Although Saoirse struggled with depression, she never let that define her.

Her uncle Robert F. Kennedy Jr. honored her memory with an Instagram post where she described Saoirse as “fierce, a fearless adventurer, and someone capable of finding humor in everything.

“The gaping hole that she leaves in our family is a wound too large to ever heal,” he concluded.

The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255. Other international suicide helplines can be found at befrienders.org