Jean Kennedy Smith, who was the last surviving sibling of President John F. Kennedy and who as a U.S. ambassador played a key role in the peace process in Northern Ireland, has died, relatives said Thursday. She was 92.
What We Know:
Former U.S. Rep. Patrick Kennedy, Smith’s nephew, confirmed her death. Her daughter Kym told The New York Times that she died Wednesday at her home in Manhattan.
Smith, the eighth of nine children born to Joseph and Rose Kennedy, was labeled “the shy Kennedy,” long finding herself in the shadow of her famous father and brothers, including U.S. Senators Robert and Edward Kennedy.
Smith, who married Kennedy family financial adviser and future White House chief of staff Stephen Edward Smith in 1956, was viewed for much of her life as a quiet sister who shunned the spotlight. In her memoir The Nine of Us, published in 2016, she wrote that for much of the time her childhood seemed “unexceptional”.
Though she never ran for office, Smith campaigned for her brothers, traveling the country for then-Sen. John F. Kennedy as he sought the presidency in 1960. Three decades later, Smith was appointed ambassador to Ireland by President Bill Clinton.
Smith’s father was ambassador to the United Kingdom from 1938 to 1940. “We’re the first father-daughter ambassadors,” she told The Irish Times in 1977. “So, I can’t remember a time when we were not an actively political family.”
Irish President Michael Higgins said Thursday, “An activist diplomat, she was not afraid to break with convention or explore the limits of her mandate. She will forever be remembered as the diplomat who had a sense of Irish history and of what had influenced the Irish in the United States.”
Smith helped persuade Clinton to grant a controversial visa in 1994 to Gerry Adams, chief of the Irish Republican Army – linked Sinn Fein party. The move defied the British government, which branded Adams as a terrorist.
She also risked controversy in 1998 by taking communion in a Protestant cathedral in Dublin, going against the bishops of her Roman Catholic church. Smith said at the time it was a great gesture of support for Irish President Mary McAleese, a fellow Catholic who had been criticized by Irish bishops for joining in the Protestant communion service.
Smith, who received Irish citizenship for “distinguished service to the nation” after stepping down as ambassador in 1998, worked tirelessly to strengthen the “enduring links” between the two nations, the U.S. Embassy in Dublin said Thursday.
Patrick Kennedy, whose wife Amy is running for Congress as a Democrat in New Jersey, also highlighted his aunt’s role in the Irish peace process as the crux of her “enormous legacy”.
Samantha Power, who served as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations under President Obama, recalled Smith as a “generous mentor” to young women who was always brimming with energy, savvy, and wit.
Massachusetts Congressman Joseph P. Kennedy III, who is RFK’s grandson and the lone member of the political dynasty currently in elected office, said she was an “incredible aunt” who led a “remarkable life”.
House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal, the dean of Massachusetts delegation to the House of Representatives, called Smith a “caring mother, a dedicated sibling an accomplished diplomat and philanthropist”.
Smith and her husband had four children, Stephen Jr., William, Amanda, and Kym. Her husband died in 1990.
Among Smith’s other siblings, Rosemary died in 2005; and Patricia in 2006.
