The Boston Globe - 05.08.2019

A8 The Region The Boston Globe MONDAY, AUGUST 5, 2019

gossip written about them in
American and British tabloids.
Knowing what Paul and
Courtney endured in theirper-
sonal lives, knowingwhat they
overcame to have a relation-
ship,and knowing just how
much they lovedtheir daughter
makes Saoirse’s death on
Thursday, at just 22, seem even
more cruel.
Though their marriage
didn’t last, Paul and Courtney
found in each other a freedom
they did not have before they
met. From theirfamilies, from
theirtroubledpasts, from the
compromising gaze of a cottage
industry that follows Kennedys
around relentlessly, like a ra-
bid, hungry wolf.
Saoirse embodied that free-
dom. She took on all the prom-
ise — and the pain — of two
tortured soulswho found in
each other, if only for a time, a
kind of settled happiness that
had eluded them in their youth.
When Courtney and Paul
became a couple and later mar-
ried, there were some breath-
less accounts of theirrelation-
ship.The coverage hinted at
scandal, particularly because of
Paul’s past. Paul and Courtney
agreed to talk to me at length.
In 1993, they sat for a series of
long interviews, candidly talk-
ing about their love for each
otherand how their relation-
ship had helped each recover
from a tortured youth — in
Paul’s case, literal torture, at
the hands of brutal English po-
lice officers and prison guards.
Ethel Kennedy, Courtney’s
mother, talked to me at the
time,too.
It was a calculated effort to
put to bed the scandal monger-
ing of the tabloids, which
shamelessly referred to Paul as
a killer and a bomber, when he
was in fact innocent. In addi-
tion to the piece in the Globe, I
also wrotea lengthy magazine
story about them for the Inde-
pendent, a newspaper in Lon-
don. I rarely interacted with
themafter thoseinterviews, ex-
cept for a memorable couple of
days in Washington at a confer-
ence on Northern Ireland and
the occasional chance meeting
over the years.
One day about 20 years ago,
Paul and I bumpedinto each
otherand he whipped out a
photo of a then-baby Saoirse.
She was gorgeous, and Paul
was absolutely delighted, the
new-dad smile plastered across
his face. Over the years, he’d
send me the occasionale-mail,
proudly noting Saoirse was a
studious girl at Deerfield Acad-
emy. He was chuffed when she
got into Boston College. When-
ever Paul mentioned Saoirse in
his e-mails, I remembered that
proud new-papa face when he
showed me her baby picture.
Courtney was just a child
when her father, Robert F. Ken-
nedy, was assassinated in Los
Angeles in 1968 whilecam-
paigning for the presidency.
She struggled as a teenager.
“In some ways,” she told me
in 1993,after she and Paul got
married, “I never had a child-
hood.”
Some people looked askance
when they married, whispering
about Paul’s past, not having a
clue he was the victim of a false
accusation. Courtney took hu-
man-rights issues seriously, and
she wanted people to knowthe
truth about her husband. Their
mutual interest in exposing hu-
man-rights violations in Ire-
land and beyond was a huge
factor in their relationship.
“We’re opposites,” Courtney
acknowledged, “but we’re very
much alike.”
Paul agreed, and what he
said back then seemed to sum
up, poignantly in hindsight,
their mutual attraction and the
inevitable pressures on their
marriage.
“She lost her youth,” he said,
“and so did I. We’ve got a lot of
catching up to do.”
Paul grew up in Northern
Ireland, which started spiraling
out of control the same year
Bobby Kennedywas murdered.
He left Belfast for England as a
teenager, hoping to avoid the
Troubles. But he ended up
spending 15 years in prisonaf-
ter he was framed for an Irish
Republican Army bombing in
Guildford, England, that he
had nothing to do with. He was
guilty only of being an Irish
Catholic fromBelfast living in
Englandat a time when the

uCULLEN
Continued fromPageA

Irish were collectively held re-

sponsible for IRA atrocities. He

was just a kid himself — 20

years old — whenpolice

stripped him naked and beat

him until he falsely confessed

to taking part in the bombing.

In Paul, Courtney found a

rakish,lovable Irish rogue, a

man who had been to the

depths of hell and madeit back

with his wicked black Belfast

sense of humorand fatalism in-

tact. Paul remained tortured in

someways, a legacy of the liter-

al torture he endured after his

arrest and imprisonment.

In his life with Courtney,

Paul was suddenlya celebrity,

thrust onto the pinnacle of the

Irish diaspora: the Kennedy

family, and all the good and

bad that comeswith it. The

money and lifestyle weregreat.

The unrelenting glare of some-

timesprurient publicity was

unnerving and ultimately can-

cerous.

They were determined to

keep Saoirse from that glare.

And for the most part, they suc-

ceeded. According to those who

knew her, Saoirse Kennedy Hill

was a smart, loving, lovely, em-

pathetic girl.

But she had her struggles,

too, with depression.

And now she’s gone. And I

am sitting here, trying to make

sense of thesethree lives, bitten

and stung by life’s arbitrary

cruelty, in ways almost unimag-

inable.

And I have to ask, in all sin-

cerity: My God, when it comes

to the Kennedys and Irish trag-

edy, whenwill it end?

The received wisdom about

Paul going from convicted mur-

derer to celebrated human-

rights activist and New York so-

cialite was that Joe Kennedy,

then a congressman, fixed him

up with little sister Courtney.

But it was way more complicat-

ed than that.

Patrick Kennedyleft Ireland

in 1848 to escape starvation

brought on by the potato blight

and British indifference. In

1960,his great-grandson was

elected president of the United

States, a rags-to-riches odyssey

that to this day helps fuel an in-

ternational fascination with all

things Kennedy.

Through it all, the Kenned-

ys, both personallyand politi-

cally, retained a strong link to

the old country. As JFK put it

when he visited Ireland shortly

before his assassination, “This

is not the land of my birth, but

it is the land for whichI hold

the greatest affection.”

On Capitol Hill, Joe Kenne-

dy was a passionate voice on

Irish issues, a champion of civil

rights in NorthernIreland,

even more outspoken than his

uncle, Senator Edward Kenne-

dy, the most influential Ameri-

can politician when it came to

Ireland, north and south. Joe

Kennedy criticized the IRA

campaign of violence and the

British government’s heavy-

handed response to it with

equal vigor.

Paul had an affinity and an

affection for the Kennedys even

before he met any of them.

“They’re haves that give a

damn abouthave-nots,” he told

me years ago.

Joe Kennedy and Paul be-

came fast friends in the late

1980s, when the congressman

championed the cause of the

Guildford Four and the Bir-

minghamSix, Irish people

framedfor and ultimately vin-

dicated of IRA pub bombings in

England, visiting them in pris-

on. In April 1990, not long after

the Guildford Four werere-

leased, Joe Kennedy invited

Paul and Gerry Conlon, anoth-

er Belfast man falsely impris-

oned, to testify before a con-

gressional hearing on human

rights. Ethel Kennedy was in

the audience, and was especial-

ly taken by Hill’s presentation.

“What he said, and how he

said it, was very powerful,” Eth-

el Kennedy told me in 1993.

Ethel Kennedy is a very di-

rect person, so she walked up

to Paul and introduced herself,

saying she wished that her

daughter Courtney had been

able to attend. But Courtney

had hurt her neckskiing and

was laid up in her Manhattan

apartment.

Before Paul knew what hit

him, Ethel Kennedy had

slipped him Courtney’s ad-

dress, urging him to visit the

next time he was in New York.

As Paul told me, “It’s hard to

ignore Ethel Kennedy.”

So he took himself to New

York. But as he was punching

the buttons for the elevator to

her Fifth Avenueapartment,

Paul was furious at himself. He

had been in prison for 15 years,

and now free drink and ador-

ing women awaited him at any

number of Irish pubs, from the

Bronxto Queens. And here he

was, going to lunch with an in-

jured rich girl he didn’t even

know.

Courtney couldn’t under-

stand a word he said, so thick

was Paul’s Belfast accent. But

the long hair, the easy laugh,

the I-don’t-give-a-flying-you-

know-what attitude left her

smitten.

Paul’s initial reaction was

not nearly as romantic. He told

me that Courtney looked pa-

thetic in her neck brace and

that therewereso many flow-

ers in her apartment it felt like

being at a wake.

His opinion changed, dra-

matically, the next night during

dinner at a Manhattan restau-

rant, when he realized they

both had a dark sense of hu-

mor. Courtney has an intuitive

appreciation of profane absur-

dity; she is also wickedly funny.

That’s what sealed the deal.

They became a couple.

“If you can’t laugh together,”

Paul told me, “what’s the

point?”

Courtney worried about ex-

posing Paul to the circus that is

being a Kennedy. Paul reas-

sured her he could take it.

“I’m not fazed by celebrity,”

Paul told me. “Lou Reedand

Leonard Cohen are the only

two people I’d go out of my way

to meet. And maybe Neil

Young.”

When he was in prison, Paul

listened to a lot of Leonard Co-

hen. People in the Manhattan

cocktail party smart set found

that odd and amusing.

“People tell me, ‘Oh, but he’s

a manic depressive.’ And I say,

‘I was in prisonfor 15 years for

something I didn’t do. I wasn’t

exactly on holiday.’ ”

Paul grew up just off the

Falls Road, the mainthorough-

fare in working-class West Bel-

fast. His father was a Protes-

tant, his mother a Catholic.

Paul was the eldest of five chil-

dren. His grandfather was a

British soldier who had en-

dured hardship as a prisonerof

the Japanese during the Second

World War. His father served in

the Royal Navy.

Paul didn’t get along with

his father. One day, when he

was 7, he announced he was

moving in with his grandpar-

ents,around the corner, and he

wasn’t comingback. He kept

his word.

He remainedcloseto his

mother, Lily, and made a point

of visiting her every day.

At 9 years old in 1963, Paul

was one of the roughand tum-

ble paper boys who sold the

Belfast Telegraph by walking

through pubs, jumping on and

off buses, chanting “Telly, Telly,

Telly.”

In the eveningof Nov. 22,

1963, as he was hawking pa-

pers on the Falls Road,Paul no-

ticed adults werestopping one

another, exchanging frantic

words, horrified stares, and

emotional embraces. Women

werecrying openly. A man

raced up to him, pulleda news-

paper from his grip, scanned

the front page, and cried, “It’s

not there! It’s not there!”

John F. Kennedy was shot

and killed after that day’s late

edition of the Belfast Telegraph.

Days later, Paul’s mother

sent him to pick up something

at a store in West Belfast. The

shopkeeper handed him a pho-

tograph — of 3-year-old John F.

Kennedy Jr., wearing a heavy

wool coat, his legs bare in the

Washington chill, saluting the

casket of his murdered father.

Thirty yearslater, Paul mar-

ried that boy’s cousin. But six

years after he toasted Paul and

Courtney’s marriage, John F.

Kennedy Jr., his wife, and his

sister-in-law died when the

planehe was piloting crashed

off the coast of Martha’s Vine-

yard.

A year after Bobby Kennedy

was murdered, civil unrest

spreadthroughout Northern

Ireland to the point that British

troops weredeployedto Belfast

and beyond. They quickly took

sides, bolstering the Protestant

unionist hegemony that openly

discriminated against Catholic

nationalists. A lot of the boys

Paul grew up with joined the

IRA and hit back.

Paul was a nationalist but

didn’t believe in violence. He

decided to go to England to

avoid the troubles. But in 1974,

after the IRA blew up two pubs

in Guildford, killing four off-

duty soldiers and a civilian, the

Troubles cameto him, in the

formof police officers who

stitchedhim up for murder.

Meanwhile, Courtney was

just 11 years old whenher fa-

ther was murdered.

“I did not react well,” she

told me in 1993. “I wasn’t re-

bellious, like the boys. I just

kept things in. I was unhappy.”

By the time she was 12,

whilemost of her friends were

worried about acne, Courtney-

had an ulcer. She hated school.

She had spent her childhood at

Hickory Hill, the Kennedy

homein suburban Virginia,

just outside Washington. She

was taught by nuns in elemen-

tary school, then came to Bos-

ton to go to Milton Academy.

“I was 15,” she told me. “It

was very hard, coming here at

that age and not knowing any-

one.”

After high school, she

movedto Cambridge and was a

teacher’s assistant at the Park

School in Brookline. She later

taught at a nursery school in

California, feeling completely

inadequate at it.

Then her mother roped her

into accompanying her young-

er sister Kerry, who had just

graduated fromhigh school, on

a tour of Europe.

“Basically, mummy wanted

someone to go with Kerry,” she

said, “andit was me.”

WhenCourtney and Kerry

arrived in Ireland, Courtney lit-

erally felt something inside.

“I felt like I was home,” she

said. “It’s hard to describe. It’s

like that feeling when you walk

into some placeand think,

‘Hmmm,this is comfortable.

This is right.’ ”

Like her uncle, the mur-

dered president, she discovered

a latent, profound love for the

land of her forebears. She lived

in Dublin, studying at Trinity

College. Later, in 1980, she

came home and got married to

a television executive. It didn’t

workout. She didn’t like being

a Manhattan housewife.

But then,in 1990, just a

year out of prison, Paul showed

up at her Manhattan doorstep.

After a three-year courtship,

they got married on a yacht in

the Aegean Sea. They spent

theirtwo-month honeymoon in

Ireland, mostly in Doolin, a

smallvillage in County Clare

near the Cliffs of Moher and a

meccafor traditional Irish mu-

sic.

They were in Doolin, on that

long honeymoon, whenPaul

turned 39. The party started

around8 p.m. and ended just

before 6 a.m. About 40 people

werethere, including a

delegation of Kennedy cousins

fromNew Ross, in County

Wexford, from wherePatrick

Kennedy sailed in the 19th

century to escape famine and

establish the Kennedy family in

Boston. They were serenaded

by Miko Russell, a farmer and

musician who was to the tin

whistle what B.B. Kingwas to

the guitar. Courtney’s aunt,

Jean KennedySmith, visited

themshortly after taking up

her post as US ambassador to

Ireland.

Courtney said there were

two people she wanted there

who weren’t.

“Our one great regret is that

Continuedonnextpage

For Kennedy and Hill, an enduring agony

GLOBEPHOTO BY STEPHEN ROSE/FILE 1999

Courtney KennedyHill and Paul Hill walked alongthe beachat the Kennedycompoundin HyannisPort with their

daughter, Saoirse,after hearingnews that John F. KennedyJr.’s planewas missing.

Freedom,what it

means,what it

carries,wasso

importantto Paul

andCourtney that

they namedtheir

daughterSaoirse.

Theirmarriage

didn’tlast. But

theirlovinglegacy

wasSaoirse.

ASSOCIATEDPRESS/ 2000

PAMBERRY,GLOBESTAFF/

Hill and Kennedy in 1993. Saoirse

KennedyHill (left) placeda rose at the

EternalFlame, President John F.

Kennedy’s gravesiteat Arlington

NationalCemetery.