The Kennedys touched by tragedy again as mother and son go missing

The Kennedy dynasty has been touched repeatedly by tragedy, most recently with the daughter and a grandson of Robert F Kennedy’s eldest daughter going missing on a canoe trip.

Maeve Kennedy Townsend McKean, 40, and her son Gideon Joseph Kennedy McKean, eight, did not return to shore at Chesapeake Bay, Maryland, on Thursday.

Kathleen Kennedy Townsend said in a statement: “With profound sadness, I share the news that the search for my beloved daughter Maeve and grandson Gideon has turned from rescue to recovery.”

Here are some other instances which have hit the family:

• Joseph R Kennedy Jr: Died in a plane crash during the Second World War aged 29.
• Rosemary Kennedy: Had been institutionalised since 1941 because of mental health problems and due to the effects of a failed lobotomy. She died in 2005.
• Kathleen Kennedy: Married William John Robert Cavendish, the Marquess of Hartington. He was killed in the Second World War, she later died in a plane crash in 1948 aged 28.
• President John F Kennedy: Assassinated in Dallas on November 22, 1963 aged 46.
• Patrick Kennedy: The president’s son Patrick was born prematurely in 1963 and died two days later, three months before his father’s assassination.
• John F Kennedy Jr: Killed with his wife and sister-in-law when their small plane crashed off Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, in 1999. He was 38.
• Robert F Kennedy: Assassinated in Los Angeles in June 1968. He was 42.
• David Kennedy: RFK’s son died in 1984 of a drug overdose in a hotel after being ousted from the family holiday home at Palm Beach. He was 28.
• Joseph Kennedy: He was involved in a 1973 car accident that left a female passenger paralysed for life.
• Michael Kennedy: RFK’s son was killed in a skiing accident in Aspen, Colorado, aged 39 in 1997.
• Edward M Kennedy: Drove a car off a bridge on Massachusetts’ Chappaquiddick Island in 1969 after a party, killing aide Mary Jo Kopechne. She was 28.
• Edward Kennedy Jr: His right leg had to be amputated in 1973 because of cancer.
• Patrick Kennedy: The former congressman sought treatment for cocaine addiction as a teenager in 1986.
• Mary Richardson Kennedy: The estranged wife of Robert F. Kennedy Jr took her own life in May 2012 aged 52.
• Saoirse Kennedy Hill: Died aged 22 of a drugs overdose after being found unresponsive at a home at the Kennedy compound on Cape Cod in 2019.