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Statement from President Higgins on the death of Jean Kennedy Smith

Date: Thu 18th Jun, 2020 | 14:49

“The news of the death of Jean Kennedy Smith will have been received with great sadness by many, both in the United States and in Ireland. 

As United States Ambassador to Ireland in the 1990s Ambassador Kennedy Smith played a pivotal role in the initiatives that led to the Good Friday Agreement which helped bring the violence in Northern Ireland to an end. 

She will be forever remembered as the diplomat who had a sense of Irish history and of what had influenced the Irish in the United States. An activist diplomat, she was not afraid to break with convention or explore the limits of her mandate.  She brought passion and clear values to her role, providing many of the elements that promoted peace and reconciliation in Northern Ireland.

Sabina and I send our sincere condolences to her children and her wider family, and to all those who will have been deeply affected by her passing.”