The last surviving sibling in a family that wrote itself into U.S. history, she was the first Kennedy woman of her generation to take on a serious political role.
Jean Kennedy Smith, a Kennedy clan sister who as the United States ambassador to Ireland in the 1990s helped pave the way for a formal agreement to end decades of sectarian violence in Northern Ireland, died on Wednesday at her home in Manhattan.She was 92.
Her daughter Kym Smith confirmed the death.
Ms. Smith was the second-youngest and last surviving sibling in a family that embedded itself in the American consciousness and wrote itself into American history, producing a president and senators and an unrivaled mystique fashioned out of political glory, personal charisma, great wealth and staggering tragedy.
Until the age when most people retire, Ms. Smith led a quiet life of privilege and philanthropy, with palatial homes, summers at the shore and a busy calendar of society and charity functions. She shared family triumphs and tragedies, though always in the shadow of her siblings, including President John F. Kennedy, Senators Robert F. Kennedy and Edward M. Kennedy (the youngest), Eunice Shriver and Patricia Kennedy Lawford.
But in 1993, when she was 65 and the widow of Stephen E. Smith, the Kennedy family’s troubleshooter and financial adviser, Ms. Smith was named ambassador to Dublin by President Bill Clinton at the behest of her brother Edward, known as Teddy.
