Irish Examiner View: A real force in NI peace deal talks - Jean Kennedy Smith

Jean Kennedy Smith in her office in the American Embassy in Dublin in 1997 Photo: RollingNews.ie

Jean Kennedy Smith, who has died aged 92, served as America’s ambassador to Ireland for the five years that preceded the 1998 Belfast peace agreement.

In that half-decade, she used charm, soft power backed by real power, to chide, to encourage, to reassure the participants in those talks that any risk they might take was far outweighed by the good an agreement would bring to their communities. She made a significant contribution to a process that offered her no immediate benefits.