Jean Kennedy Smith - Philanthropy, Awards and Later Life

Philanthropy, Awards and Later Life

Smith has won a number of awards for her work in Ireland and in the disability community. In 1995, she was honored as Irish American of the Year by Irish America magazine and a year later had an uncredited role in the film Michael Collins (1996). She was awarded honorary citizenship by the Government of Ireland in 1998 and in 2007, Smith received the Gold Medal Award from the Éire Society of Boston, for her peace efforts in Northern Ireland and for her humanitarian work with disabled children. She has also received the Jefferson Award for Outstanding Public Service, the Margaret Mead Humanitarian Award, and the 1997 Terence Cardinal Cooke Humanitarian Award.

In 2009, Smith was honored with the Tipperary Peace Prize along with her brother, the late Senator Edward Kennedy, for their support of the peace process in Northern Ireland. In February 2011, President Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, for her work with people with disabilities.

On March 15, 2011, Smith was inducted into Irish America magazine's Irish America Hall of Fame.

Smith, who holds a number of honorary degrees, serves on the board of directors of both the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and the International Rescue Committee, and has also served on the Board of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

Her husband, Stephen Smith, died of cancer on August 19, 1990. In 1991 their son William, then a student at Georgetown University School of Medicine, Washington, D.C., was accused of rape in Florida, but was acquitted after a highly-publicized trial. Her elder sister Eunice Kennedy Shriver died on August 11, 2009. Smith did not attend Eunice's funeral on August 14, 2009, choosing to stay with their brother Ted who was ill; he died on August 25, 2009, leaving her as the last surviving child of Joseph and Rose Kennedy. She attended his funeral on August 29, 2009.