→OCTOBER 2019 | The Australian Women’s Weekly 37
The Kennedys
O
n the evening of Friday,
August 2, some 30
members of the Kennedy
family gathered around
a firepit in the grounds
of their famous compound in Hyannis
Port, Massachusetts. On the Saturday
and Sunday they sailed and swam in
the blue waters off Cape Cod, and on
the Monday they went to a funeral.
Saoirse Kennedy Hill was just 22,
beautiful, blonde, idealistic, and like
so many of her family, destined to die
young. She was the granddaughter of
Senator Robert F. Kennedy, himself killed
by an assassin at the age of 42, and afavourite of RFK’s 91-year-old widow,
Ethel, the current Kennedy matriarch, in
whose beachfront house she was staying.
On the morning of August 1, Saoirse,
having failed to appear for breakfast,
was discovered dead in her bedroom
from an apparent drug overdose.
Every new tragedy to befall the
Kennedys revives talk of the “curse”
that supposedly stalks them, feeding
the fascination they attract, and raising
questions about the very public, but
perilous, nature of their lives. In their
extraordinary journey from poor
beginnings in Ireland to become
America’s unofficial royal family, theyhave never veered far from scandal,
controversy and misfortune.
Beer and ballads around the fire
struck many as a peculiar way to
mourn, but as long-time Kennedy friend
and spokesman Brian O’Connor
explained, the family holds dear to
its own traditions, and wanted the
weekend gathering to reflect the “joy
and exuberance” of Saoirse’s short life.
Saoirse (pronounced Sur-sha), means
‘freedom’ in the Irish language, but in
a sense, the latest Kennedy casualty
was a prisoner of the family name. Her
upbringing had been troubled and as it
tends to be within the clan, distortedGREATNESS
and