Patrick Kennedy said the ‘stigma and isolation’ surrounding the issue of mental health must come to an end as he opened up about the death of his cousin Saoirse from an apparent drug overdose.
The former politician, 52, who is the son of Ted Kennedy, also called Saoirse a ‘hero’ for speaking candidly about her struggle with depression and mental illness in an article for her school paper in 2016.
The Boston College student had described how she sought treatment after she attempted to take her own life two weeks before her junior year began at the prestigious preparatory school, Deerfield Academy.
The 22-year-old was found unresponsive on Thursday at the family’s Hyannis Port compound and was later taken to Cape Cod hospital where she was pronounced dead.
Speaking on NBC’s Nightly News with Lester Holt, Patrick Kennedy, paid tribute to Soairse for her bravery and said she opened the door for her peers to be open and not feel ‘shamed’ by mental health illness.
Patrick Kennedy, (pictured), said the ‘stigma and isolation’ surrounding the issue of mental health must come to an end as he opened up about the death of his cousin Saoirse from an apparent drug overdose
Saoirse Kennedy Hill, 22, (pictured), died of a possible drug overdose at the Kennedy Compound on Cape Cod on Thursday
Kennedy shared a 2016 article Saoirse had penned for a student newspaper in which she spoke about her struggle with depression. She also revealed how she attempted to take her own life and sought treatment before returning to school
He said: ‘She’s a real hero in my family, she broke the silence, we mourn her loss but her memory will live on as someone who wasn’t going to keep silent and wasn’t going to be feeling as if she had something shameful but rather something medical that she sought treatment for.
‘This affects every single family in America, it’s way past time that we deal with this in a way that we would deal with any other public health crisis.’
Patrick previously conveyed his sentiments earlier in the day on Twitter, where he wrote several heartfelt messages in the wake of the devastating news.
He also shared a link to the essay Saoirse had penned for her school newspaper The Deerfield Scroll in 2016, describing how depression was her ‘unwanted friend’ in bouts that ‘would come and go.’
She also alluded to being allegedly sexually assaulted, claiming she ‘totally lost it after someone I knew and loved broke serious sexual boundaries with me.’
Saoirse, who is the granddaughter of the late Presidential candidate Robert Kennedy and his wife Ethel, did not go into further detail about the individual involved in the alleged assault or state whether she reported it to authorities.
But it seemed clear from her writing that the encounter had an impact on her emotionally.
Patrick Kennedy represented a Rhode Island district for eight terms in Congress and has since leaving office in 2011.
In a tweet sharing the article, Patrick said: ‘Saoirse’s sincere account of her depression is a powerful reminder of how so many people suffer alone and feel isolated. I am proud Saoirse was able to be open and tell her story. I encourage everyone to read her words.
He added: ‘ Feel what she felt. Do whatever you can from your position in life to stop the isolation, the stigma, and the devastating lack of acknowledgement that often leads to tragedy. Families across the nation, including ours, are suffering. We must come out of the shadows.
Saoirse had also alluded to being allegedly sexually assaulted, claiming she ‘totally lost it after someone I knew and loved broke serious sexual boundaries with me’
In the essay she wrote: ‘My depression took root in the beginning of my middle school years and will be with me for the rest of my life,’ Saoirse wrote. ‘Although I was mostly a happy child, I suffered bouts of deep sadness that felt like a heavy boulder on my chest.
‘Though the teen admitted that her depression episodes ‘would come and go,’ she said it particularly affected her during her sophomore year at the private Massachusetts prep school.
‘I began isolating myself in my room, pulling away from my relationships, and giving up on schoolwork,’ Saoirse recalled.
‘During the last few weeks of spring term, my sadness surrounded me constantly.’ But that summer after my sophomore year, my friend depression rarely came around anymore, and I was thankful for her absence,’ she added.
After initially overcoming this battle with depression, Saoirse shared that she attempted suicide.
‘My sense of well-being was already compromised, and I totally lost it after someone I knew and loved broke serious sexual boundaries with me,’ she wrote.
‘I did the worst thing a victim can do, and I pretended it hadn’t happened. This all became too much, and I attempted to take my own life.’
It seemed clear from her writing that the encounter had a serious impact on her emotionally, as she wrote about the stigma surrounding mental health and how many people feel uncomfortable talking about their well-being.
It is understood that Ethel, the matriarch of the family, decided to take some of her grandchildren and other family members out sailing on a boat called the Glide for an hour on Friday afternoon, before returning to the dock, (pictured)
Relatives and friends were seen gathering at the famed family compound as news of the tragedy emerged Thursday night
Residents in the Hyannis Port community, who know the family, expressed their shock and sadness over Soairse’s death
The column also focused on her return to school for her senior year after she went on medical leave to seek treatment.
She appeared to feel disappointed over the fact federal privacy law seemed to prevent her teachers and advisers from knowing what she was experiencing, and claimed that the school could have been better equipped to talk about mental illness.
Saoirse later went on to enroll at Boston College, where she was a communication major and vice president of the College Democrats.
Marcus Breen, a professor of communication at Boston College, said Kennedy Hill was an engaging student in a class he taught on social media and social justice.
‘It was an expression of her concern for others,’ Professor Breen told The New York Times. ‘She will be missed on campus and in class.’
In an email to The New York Times he wrote: ‘In classes she was often the first student to offer an opinion on readings that demanded clear critique about the challenges of contemporary society,’ he said in an email.
Ethel Kennedy, (pictured wearing a pink shirt), and her daughter Courtney Kennedy Hill, (pictured beside her), were seen for the first time on Friday following the tragic death of Courtney’s daughter Saoirse, 22, from a suspected drug overdose
On the back of the golf buggy they were supported by Kerry Townsend Meltzer, the youngest daughter of Kathleen Kennedy Townsend
Saoirse Kennedy Hill helped found a group at the school called Deerfield Students Against Sexual Assault, according to a November 2016 story in The Deerfield Scroll
Professor Breen claimed that Saoirse once asked him to speak to her out after a class conversation on feminism and rape culture, asking him whether the issues were appropriate for the classroom given that some students may have been survivors of sexual assault.
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.
Soairse’s unexpected death at such a young age as shocked the nation, and is the latest in a long line of tragedies stretching back to the 1940s to have struck America’s most famous political dynasty.
There were emotional scenes at the sprawling Kennedy compound on Friday, where family members were seen hugging and embracing each other following her death.
Her grandmother Ethel Kennedy, 91, and mother Courtney Kennedy Hill, appeared anguished as they were spotted on a golf cart returning to the compound after a brief outing.
Some relatives had taken the Glide sailboat out around Hyannis Port and could be seen hugging one another as it docked at around 2.30 pm on Friday.
Robert F Kennedy Jr paid a moving tribute to his niece Saoirse Kennedy Hill, saying the ‘gaping hope she leaves in our lives is too large to ever heal’ following her suspected death of a drug overdose on Thursday
Saoirse’s uncle Robert F Kennedy Jr, son of the late presidential candidate and his wife Ethel, shared an image with his beloved niece and described her as ‘fierce and daring’ as the family mourn her tragic loss
Saoirse is seen (back row third from right) celebrating her grandmother Ethel’s birthday last year surrounded by family members
Saoirse’s father is Paul Michael Hill, one of four people falsely convicted in the 1974 Irish Republican Army bombings of two pubs. Hill and Courtney Kennedy married in 1993 and welcomed their only daughter in 1997.
They lived in Ireland from 2002 until 2006, the year they legally separated. Saoirse spent part of her childhood in Ireland, and often spoke of how proud she was of her Irish heritage and her Gaelic given name, which means freedom.
Residents in the Hyannis Port community, who know the family, expressed their shock and sadness over Soairse’s death.
Greg Harden, who lives just outside the Kennedy compound and knows several of the family members, told the Boston Globe: ‘They’re great people. They’ve been through a lot, a lot of tragedy in the family. And this is just really sad.’
Another resident named Ben Ayres of Hyannis said told the outlet: ‘It’s a continuation of a history of tragedy.
Ayres, who was a child when John F. Kennedy was shot, said: ‘It created a huge impression on me. It just made me sad.
Saoirse Kennedy Hill is seen resting on her mom Courtney in a moving image shared on Courtney’s Facebook image
Paramedics responded to a suspected overdose just after 2.30 pm and found the patient in cardiac arrest at the home where Ethel Kennedy lived at 28 Marchant Avenue in Hyannis Port. She is pictured here with several of her cousins on a sailboat
Saoirse is seen on the family’s boat in an Instagram photo posted by her uncle Robert F Kennedy Jr over the weekend
She is also seen in a funny image in a swimsuit with friends while skiing while on a recent vacation
‘There’s a real kind of earthiness and friendliness [to the Kennedys]. ‘They just kind of melt into the area here and are very much a part of the community.’
Saoirse and other members of the family were known to visit Baxter’s Boathouse restaurant, often arriving by boat.
Jeff Robertson claimed they saw Saoirse at the restaurant ‘a couple weekengs ago’ and she would often be with members of the large Kennedy clan or a ‘younger crowd.’
Another patron said: ‘Most people here are affected by it. It breaks the otherwise peaceful tone of the area.’
A close friend of the Kennedys, Luciana Klosterman, told DailyMail.com that the family were trying to find a place that would help treat Saoirse’s depression just months before her death.
Klosterman was introduced to the Kennedys by her late husband, Don Klosterman, a prominent pro-football executive, who was good friends with Ethel Kennedy.
Klosterman, who lives in New York, said that she last saw Courtney Kennedy at the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights’ Ripple of Hope awards ceremony in November.
‘She was in a good mood and I was so happy to see her happy. She was here with a friend from Ireland and we spent some time together,’ Klosterman said.
Saoirse spent part of her childhood in Ireland, and often said she was proud of her Irish heritage. Her father, Paul Hill, is one of the Guildford Four, who were falsely accused of involvement in Irish Republican Army bombing. They are pictured together above
Courtney Kennedy Hill is pictured in a loving embrace with her only daughter Saoirse in a recent Facebook image
‘Maybe two or three months ago, I talked to her over the phone. She was in California. She was trying to find a place for Saoirse there, to help with her depression.’
She added: ‘Aside from being a Kennedy, the mother and the daughter are two completely magnificent people.’
Another source close to the family said they were stunned by the apparent overdose as Saoirse had not been a partier.
‘There’s never been any sign to the family that Saoirse was drinking or taking drugs. She wasn’t a partier or anything,’ the source told Page Six.
However they did concede she had a ‘very difficult’ upbringing and had an ‘unstable childhood’ until her parents, Courtney and Paul Hill separated.
‘This girl is very sweet and a very shy girl who has struggled a lot with depression since her early teens,’ they added.
In a 2002 interview with the Scottish Herald, Courtney also revealed her own struggle with depression in her early life, which began following the assassination of her father in 1968.
Saoirse Kennedy Hill holds a relative’s baby before a ceremony for naming the Robert Kennedy Navy Ship at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library, in Boston in 2016
Friends and family of Saoirse Kennedy shared several images on social media, painting the picture of a young woman who loved life and had a number of interests
She revealed: ‘I suffered, and do suffer, from depression. It’s very difficult for Paul to deal with because he went through that in prison and was able to deal with it and pull himself out, whereas I just couldn’t pull myself out. It was just my make-up. It happens to all kinds of people.” She pauses, breaking eye contact.
‘I don’t think it was anything to do with my background because I’ve got all kinds of brothers and sisters who don’t have it.’
She claimed her childhood was spent at the Kennedy home in suburban Virginia, just outside Washington.
She later moved to Boston, became a nursery teacher in California before touring Europe with her sister Kerry.
She also said: ‘My difficulty was being able to say ‘I’m a Kennedy and I’m suffering from depression. I had it when I was a teenager and ten years later, and I had it after my brother David died. I’ve had it the last five years off and on.’
Saoirse’s father Paul Hill and the three other members of the Guildford Four served 14 years of a life sentence for the attack which killed five people and injured 65, before their convictions were overturned in 1989.
In 1990, a year after his release, Hill was invited alongside Gerry Conlon to testify before a congressional hearing on human rights.
It was there that he met Ethel Kennedy, the mother of his future wife, Courtney. Kennedy was impressed by Mr Hill and later recalled ‘What he said, and how he said it, was very powerful.’
She quickly introduced herself and invited him to her family’s New York home to meet Courtney.
Courtney, a former human rights activist and representative for a UN Aids foundation, said of their meeting in her apartment: ‘He was so charming and we soon realized we had the same humor to face adversity.’
An autopsy conducted on the 22-year-old found no trauma to her body, leaving the cause and manner of her death to be determined following toxicology tests, the local district attorney’s office said.