Sarah Brown (wife of British Prime Minister Gordon Brown), Shaun Woodward, Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, and Martin McGuinness, deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland, visited Boston to pay their respects to Senator Ted Kennedy, who died on August 25 at the age of 77.

Mrs Brown, Secretary of State Woodward, and deputy First Minister McGuinness attended the memorial service for the Senator at the JFK Library on Friday, August 28, and attended the funeral service at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Basilica the following Saturday, August 29.

Gordon Brown called the late Senator a "great internationalist who inspired social progress in every country." The Prime Minister reflected on his personal friendship with Kennedy in an editorial published by The Boston Globe.

Sarah Brown referred to the Senator as "a champion for economic prosperity … a great legislator" on her Twitter account, while Secretary of State Woodward and deputy First Minister McGuinness reflected on Kennedy’s involvement in the Northern Ireland peace process. "He was somebody who never accepted the world as it was and as it is and always dreamed of how it might be,’’ said Woodward in an interview with the Boston Globe, echoing the Senator’s own words, while deputy First Minister McGuinness also lauded Kennedy, saying that appreciation of his peacemaking efforts "knows no bounds."

The Senator had introduced Gordon Brown at an April 18, 2008 speech at the JFK Library by noting that "all of us are very proud of the remarkable ties of history and heritage that bind the United States and Great Britain." Senator Kennedy was later granted an honorary knighthood by Queen Elizabeth II on March 4, 2009.

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- British Foreign Secretary David Miliband on Senator Kennedy: an "outstanding contribution..to American life."

- Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s speech at the JFK Library in April 2008

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