Kennedys descend on Cape Cod as tears flow for Saoirse
Members of the Kennedyy clan flocked to their Cape Cod compound to mourn RFK’s granddaughter Saoirse Kennedy Hill — as the co-ed’s initial autopsy on Friday revealed no suspicious signs of trauma.
The 22-year-old Boston College student was found dead of a suspected drug overdose at her family’s Hyannis Port estate Thursday afternoon. An ex-exact cause of death is pending a toxicology report as police continue to investigate, authorities said.
“The gaping hole that she leaves in our family is a wound too large to ever heal,” Hill’s grieving uncle, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., wrote Friday on Instagram.
Hill’s cousin Maria Shriver told her Instagram followers to “be gentle with others, as so many are fragile and struggling” — alluding to Saoirse’s years-long battle with depression.
Hill’s mother is Courtney Kennedy Hill, the fifth child of Robert F. and Ethel Kennedy. Her father is Irish activist Paul Hill.
Ethel and a crew of relatives, including daughter Courtney, spent about an hour Friday afternoon sailing one of the family’s yachts, Glide, photos show.
It was Ethel’s idea to take the yacht out, the Daily Mail said.
Police had responded to a report “of an overdose’’ at the family home at 28 Marchant Ave. in Hyannis Port — part of the stunning six-acre waterfront estate owned by matriarch Ethel — around 2:30 p.m. Thursday, according to audio from the police scanner. Hill was already in cardiac arrest at the time and was pronounced dead at a hospital.
A source close to the family insisted to The Post on Friday that Saoirse wasn’t a party girl.
“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 said.
But Saoirse did have a “very difficult upbringing’’ and suffered bouts of depression through her young life, the source noted. She also publicly wrote about being sexually assaulted as a teen and attempting suicide.
“Saoirse had a very troubled, unstable childhood and life until the time that Courtney and Paul separated, and then Courtney and Saoirse moved back to the Cape, where they’ve been living fulltime for about the past 10 years,” the source said.
“This girl is very sweet and a very shy girl who has struggled a lot with depression since her early teens.”
Courtney and Paul — who was wrongfully convicted in a pair of Irish Republican Army bombings in 1974 — married in 1993 and split in 2006 after years of living in Ireland.
Saoirse — whose name means “freedom” in Gaelic — spent some of her childhood in Ireland.
Family tributes poured in online Friday for Saoirse, one of Robert and Ethel Kennedy’s 35 grandchildren.
Heartbroken relatives posted a series of personal photos, most of them showing a bikini-clad and tan-faced Saoirse grinning ear-to-ear on boats and at the beach.
Aunt Kerry Kennedy, who has three daughters with ex-husband Gov. Cuomo, uploaded one snap of her and Saoirse at the beach.
“Sweet Saoirse,” she wrote.
Michaela, the youngest daughter of Kerry and Cuomo, remembered Saoirse’s “infectious charisma and fervor for finding joy in every moment.
“Her beauty, inside and out, lit up every room that she entered,” she wrote alongside photos she shared of the two together. “No matter where you were, as long as you were with Saoirse you were going to have a joyful, hilarious adventure.”
RFK Jr. posted a series of personal photos on Instagram showing Saoirse jumping off a jetty with Michaela, moving into her dorm room at Boston College, skiing on New Year’s Day and smiling on
stage at a Kenny Chesney concert with her mom.
“Saoirse was fierce, both in her love for her family and yearning for justice,” RFK Jr. wrote. “A fearless adventurer, she inspired curiosity and daring in her friends. But her greatest gift was to find humor in everything and to give us all the gift of her laughter — and our own.”