LOST and found She is from America's first family, he is one of the Guildford Four. Loss united Courtney Kennedy and Paul Hill. Now they are searching for peace in Ireland

Fanore sits on the shores of the Atlantic - a far cry from Pennsylvania Avenue and the imposing government buildings of America's capital - roughly four miles west of Ballyvaughan and four miles south of Black Head, the most northerly point of County Clare. While it is a popular spot for swimming, fishing and surfing, locals know it as the area where Courtney Kennedy and her husband Paul Hill, the Irishman freed after 15 years in prison following a wrongful conviction for IRA bomb attacks in England in 1974, and their daughter, Saoirse Roisin, have decided to put down their roots.

Paul Hill is sitting in the pine-floored living room of their rented house, gazing at the Atlantic. He is wearing a pair of striped Ralph Lauren suit trousers and a casual shirt. His trademark long hair, one of the few parts of his former life that remain, is tied in a ponytail and his face is clean-shaven. He's got the handshake of a New York longshoreman. ''How's it goin' fellas?'' he says, his voice singing somewhere between Belfast and Boston. ''Courtney's puttin' on her make-up or something.''

Except for the echo of soaring political rhetoric the court of Camelot is evident. The house is lined with photographs of the people who matter to them most - RFK, JFK and

various other members of the Kennedy clan. Alongside those are photographs of Hill steering a boat belonging to actor Tommy Lee Jones and a picture of Arnold Schwarzenegger with his family (Arnie is married to Maria Shriver, a cousin of Courtney). More poignantly, there is also a picture of John Kennedy jnr taken shortly before his untimely death. The images hold an obvious power; they represent what it means to be a Kennedy and the couple are fiercely loyal to that legacy. Even from the window, out to sea, you can see a stretch of land owned by Kathleen Kennedy, the lieutenant governor of Maryland, and sister-in-law of Hill.

While County Wexford is the ancestral home of the Kennedys (Courtney's great-grandfather emigrated to Boston from Dunganston) Fanore is a dime-store novel homecoming, of sorts. ''We love it here. Courtney loves it here and Saoirse loves it here. I can look at the ocean all day. It's beautiful.'' He flicks some cigarette ash into the fireplace.

Handsome, charming and fiery, at 47, Paul Hill has the bruised intelligence of a man who has spent every day of his 15-year prison sentence protesting his innocence. Hill, Gerry Conlon, Patrick Armstrong and Carole Richardson were given life sentences for

bombing public houses in Guildford, Surrey, before the Court of Appeal overturned their convictions in 1989. Hill, who was 19 at the time, and Armstrong were also wrongfully sentenced for a bomb attack in Woolwich. Seven people died in the Guildford and Woolwich explosions (Hill was moved 50 times behind the bars of 35 different prisons for 15 years, spending five years in solitary confinement). After having his conviction overturned later, in 1994, he was cleared of murdering Brian Shaw, a former soldier killed in Belfast in 1974. The conviction was ruled ''unsafe and unsatisfactory''.

Since gaining his freedom and marrying into the most influential of all Irish-American families, the nearest America ever got to its own royalty, his life has been remarked upon from the Falls Road to the houses of Washington sophisticates, arousing more than its fair share of scepticism. Is he fazed at all? ''Not really, I don't get fazed by anybody. I've been through too much to be fazed by the Kennedys. It was hard at the start, of course, sitting at the table where everyone's a lawyer, or barrister who went to Harvard. Everyone asks what school I went to and I'd say Hull or Parkhurst [prison].''

Just then Courtney walks in and her quirky voice introduces herself with a polite ''hi, guys''. She looks just like her father - the same eyes and beaming smile. Her accent bounces on every syllable. ''The University of Parkhurst,'' she retorts, with merry sarcasm. After a three-

year romance they married without fanfare on June 26, 1993, on a boat in the Aegean Sea to avoid a tabloid circus (her mother and a priest ended up going on the honeymoon with them in the village of Doolin - where they are negotiating to buy a piece of land to build their own family home - a couple of miles from Fanore). She had divorced in 1990 after a ten-year marriage to Robert Ruhe. Similarly, Hill had also married - while in prison - and was divorced soon after his release. ''It helped at the time

but it wasn't done for the right reasons. You don't marry to get help. It was a very amicable divorce.''

His wife smiles, acknowledging the social gulf in their backgrounds. ''But there are also a lot of similarities. He lost an enormous portion of his life and I lost my father and that took away something profound from me. There was the sense that we had something in common with each other.'' Hill nods in agreement. ''It didn't take long to become comfortable in that kind of environment. I didn't pitch right in but it wasn't a problem. They happen to be a normal family who have been beset by tragedy.'' The tragedies in the Kennedy family are well documented, specifically the deaths of JFK and RFK. She also lost her two brothers - David, 29, from a drug overdose and Michael, 39, in a skiing accident - and cousin, John. But the Kennedys, it seems, were always open and used to having different people around. ''My mother, Ethel, had people protesting the Vietnam War staying on our lawn. There have

always been a big variety of people around us. Paul just added to the colour.''

The first time he met Courtney (one of RFK's 11 children) was in New York. Ethel gave him her daughter's number after a speech he had given - dismantling the legal system that had held him - at the congressional Human Rights Caucus after an invitation from Joe Kennedy, one of the Guildford Four's most outspoken supporters in US Congress. ''Courtney had broken her neck skiing and did I want to visit her because she was interested in Ireland? Well, not particularly. I wanted to go to Manhattan and drink in all the Irish bars ... so she's in this Fifth Avenue apartment with all these flowers and it looked like a mausoleum. But we hit it off.'' Courtney laughs. ''He was so charming and we soon realised we had the same humour to face adversity.''

One day, growing up in the Falls Road, Paul announced he was going to live with his grandparents. He was seven years old and didn't get on with his father, a Protestant and merchant

seaman. He moved. Two years later, working as a paperboy, he recalls the rush for news when President Kennedy was assassinated. His death was too late to make the final edition of the Belfast Telegraph but he understood, the way the adults were fussing, that something momentous had happened. A few days later his mother handed him some money to buy a framed

photograph of a small boy, wearing shorts, saluting the memory of JFK. He was John F Kennedy jnr. There was nothing in Paul's life to indicate that one day he might meet him and later marry his cousin.

Courtney heaves in her chair and draws on her cigarette. At 45, she is a former human rights activist and representative for a UN Aids foundation, although her exposure to politics has now been usurped by her allegiance to Saoirse. While Paul was struggling in Belfast and, later, England, she was grappling with problems of her own - the death of her father. She became depressed. ''They were tough times,'' she says, sounding small. ''I suffered, and do suffer, from depression. It's very difficult for Paul to deal with because he went through that in prison and was able to deal with it and pull himself out, whereas I just couldn't pull myself out. It was just my make-up. It happens to all kinds of people.'' She pauses, breaking eye contact. ''I don't think it was anything to do with my background because I've got all kinds of brothers and sisters who don't have it.''

Her childhood was spent at Hickory Hill, the Kennedy home in suburban Virginia, just outside Washington. She later moved to Boston, became a nursery teacher in California before touring Europe with her sister Kerry. ''I landed in Ireland and it felt right.'' Shortly afterwards she enrolled in Trinity College Dublin but, by her own admission, was not a good student.

''My difficulty was being able to say 'I'm a Kennedy and I'm suffering from depression'.

I had it when I was a teenager and ten years later, and I had it after my brother David died. I've had it the last five years off and on.'' She admits to coping ''not very well''. Growing up in a family fuelled by so much Celtic testosterone it's hardly surprising. She shrugs, laughing heartily, pop-eyed, her eyebrows dancing.

Contrary to what she has just revealed, she is always smiling.

''It wasn't hard for me to marry Paul simply because I was in love,'' she chimes. ''He wasn't a trophy husband. He was innocent of all the things that were linked to him. There may have been a lot of baggage with him but there's a lot of baggage comes with me too.'' Paul insists

they ''both share a very black, Irish sense of humour''.

Not surprisingly Paul has found it difficult to get prison out of his system. Although he is not bitter he is angry. In fact, he gets angry a lot. He explodes. ''I lose it. It's difficult dealing with it. Courtney finds it hard to deal with.'' She has to remove herself, she says, when she can feel it coming on. ''He still has terrible nightmares, although they're not as bad as they used to be.'' For a long time, almost every night, he would wake up screaming and sweating, convinced he was back in prison. ''It was a terrible thing to see and I just used to wish there was something I could do,'' says Courtney. ''But he just needed to go through it and, you know, after ten years, 12 years, he hasn't had too many for a while.''

More than anything he wishes he could be more accomplished but he has a problem focusing. ''I just can't do it. I'm not angry with anyone in particular I'm just angry that I can't get something back. If I lose my leg I want my leg back. In my head I'm like 15 years younger, it's kind of weird. I was pickled, suspended in time.'' While Hill recently worked with the humanitarian group Operation USA in its efforts to eliminate land mines and also Amnesty International, his wife thinks he'll never work like a normal

person. He can do projects for spurts, and work 18 hours a day but can't commit to a long-term idea or plan. ''I don't think that will ever

happen.''

Over the last decade, at the most visible end of public life, his inner life has been displayed like a vaudeville act. Although he's still got his mother, sister, brother and his daughter, Kara, who was born to his then girlfriend shortly after he was arrested, these relationships are based on things from the past. The relationship with Kara is fraught. ''She's a good kid - 27 this year, not married, and no kids. She should get an award for being like that in West Belfast. She had a lot of trouble when she was younger. It was hard for me because I couldn't do anything about it. Everyone's changed.''

He never sought professional help, at least not on a long-term basis, preferring to deal with it himself, in his head. It's been different for his wife, the window on his interior life. Over the years she's taken medication to combat her own demons, while Paul eschews it, refusing even an aspirin. ''Being here is the best medication I can think of,'' says Courtney, ''I sleep much better, although we do keep waking each other up with bouts of madness. We're totally dysfunctional.'' She breaks into raucous laughter. ''One of us is usually functioning.'' Then she pauses. ''You're in my house and I'm telling you all this!'' They agree that because each of their backgrounds was difficult they both understand this intensity and, says Courtney, ''we're both Irish, at the

end of the day, so there's a lot of natural commonality.'' And Saoirse? ''She's very Irish. Her grandmother nicknamed her rebel.''

Fanore has brought a greater sense of perspective to their lives, particularly since the September 11 attacks on America. They want Saoirse brought up in an environment that is less manic. ''The US has gone patriotism crazy,'' says Paul, ''almost fundamental. And with [President] Bush, well he's just getting payback for his father. He was always going to fight his father's wars. All I miss is [David] Letterman and [Jay] Leno. We needed some sanity in our life.'' Courtney agrees. Living in Ireland is a real sense of homecoming for her. ''I don't feel like I'm in a foreign country.''

Paul is shifting in his seat and he reminds Courtney there's a football match on the television at five thirty. She looks at him thinly, smiling. Then she looks out across the Atlantic. ''There's no way the game's on at that time.'' We'll finish talking later, he says, and we head to Doolin to watch Arsenal versus Bolton. Paul is a huge Arsenal fan, from his time in London before his imprisonment, although Celtic remains his first love. He checks the photographer and myself into a B&B and we head to McGanns pub, ''within staggering distance'' of our beds. McGanns is his local, but he watches the games at McDermotts, further up the road.

Although Doolin is the mecca for Irish folk music the townspeople have country and western eyes - sad, mournful and always thinking of a loved one far away, usually in America. Paul drinks beer. He's off the shots now because he would ''just go crazy''. When he first got out of prison he had a ''mad period, a really mad period. I was drinking heavily and everything else. I used to go missing for days, remember nothing. It was bad, really bad. I don't drink in the house. I'm okay on the beer.'' On one wall there is a plate bearing the image of JFK and his wife, Jackie; on another is a photograph of Paul with some members of the Birmingham Six. Everyone in the bar seems to know him and he is treated with great humour and affection. There is something about Paul Hill that is irresistibly black and charming: the self-effacing humour, the total Kennedy charm. With every conversation he has, he

makes the listener feel they might be the only person in the room.

But it's a cardinal sin to think he'll spill the beans about everything in his life for the price of a beer. Long ago he learned to keep part of himself for himself. They both have. A few beers and a few hours later and it's time for some food. Paul refuses explaining that, since prison, he eats very little. ''I eat like a bird.'' We leave McGanns for the football. The night continues, full of dexterity and stamina, and Arsenal win 2-0. We return to McGann's to watch some Americans or Australians listening to Germans or Dutch playing Irish music and, of course, for more drink, while Paul tells me about the time he got his cheekbone smashed to pieces in prison. The assault, barely two weeks before

his release, was quickly countered. He took

a half brick, placed it in a sock and battered

his assailant over the head with it. ''That's

what I became,'' he says, his searching eyes

fogging with anger, ''that's prison, you know.''

The following day Courtney is laughing gently at both our denials about the timing of the football. She brings out some homemade brownies and tea. Paul insists he needs a ''cure'' - a few more drinks to improve his head, which is bursting. We talk again about the Kennedy name and the burden of it but Courtney insists it's the only thing she knows. ''To me it's just my brothers and sisters, a big family. We've had some wonderful times in our lives and I've had the best father anyone could have. I was 11 when he died, just getting to know him. I miss him very much.'' As she talks about her father she fiddles with her cigarettes. She's not aware of it. Then she scratches her arm. There's an almost unwritten code that the Kennedys are not allowed to complain about who they are. The spotlight comes with the territory. ''For a lot of people who lost their father 30 odd years ago time has perhaps

diminished the loss but for me it's always getting brought up. People will come up to me and start crying about how much they miss my father and I have to console them. It's as if my father and uncle belonged to someone else. It's nice people think they were part of their lives too but for me it's not that I lost senator Robert Kennedy, I lost Daddy.''

Despite the underlying sense that Hill is still suffering from his quixotic beginnings as a Belfast teenager who travelled to the White House via Wormwood Scrubs and countless other English nicks, he is most secure describing himself as ''a father''. He's tried to take something positive from this whole experience. Materially, his life has got better because of what happened but he would never wish that it had happened that way. ''I don't care for material things. You can get bitter but I try not to, it just drags me down. I try to live my year the way Saoirse does, slow it down, take everything in, enjoy life, learn knew things.''

He has yet to reach a full agreement on compensation and although it is speculated that he has received around (pounds) 500,000 he'd sooner not say how much except the estimate is ''low ball''. He's got ''good people'' on it. ''Besides it's tacky talking in monetary terms about my life and the lives of the others. I want the money, it will make the quality of my family life better and they [the authorities] will be held accountable. I just don't want to keep going down that road about my past life.''

A few months ago he attended the funeral in Galway of Sister Sarah Clarke, the Irish nun dubbed the Joan of Arc of English jails, who died on February 4, aged 82. She was the unsung heroine of the campaign to clear the Guildford Four, Birmingham Six and the Maguire Seven. At the funeral he met four of the men responsible for the Guildford bombings. Although no one else has been charged in the Guildford or Birmingham bombings, it is widely believed the IRA bombing team responsible served life for a series of other blasts. Six months ago he was in a pub in Dublin and a girl came in and sat three stools from him. It was common knowledge she was the woman with two of the boys who planted the Guildford bomb. ''She said 'sorry about that, you know'. That was alright, it's not hard to deal with. They were all normal young men and women. The police knew we were the wrong guys.''

While it often irks people that he refuses to denounce the IRA or those involved in the bombings he is at pains to remind people those involved were symptoms of the problems in Northern Ireland, not the cause. Neither does his wife sit on ceremony when asked about his past. ''Does anyone really think I would marry an IRA killer after my father was assassinated for political purposes?''

Although Courtney is at a good stage in her life, her civic-mindedness is pushing her towards working again, possibly in politics. In the past she has worked with her sister Kathleen and brother Joe. Her mental health is getting better and Saoirse is having a great time, attending the local primary school. Both prefer the dreams of the future than the history of the past. Does Paul have any regrets? ''Not really. I'm not letting anything be baggage. I've been called an ex-convict, which I'm not, and ex-IRA man, which I'm not. But if they're on at me it means someone else is being left alone which is fine.''

The Atlantic Ocean looks wilder in the rain. I don't think County Clare gets a summer but then again, I'm not sure it matters. ''It's fantastic,'' says Courtney, ''but it's quite different from Washington and Boston, nothing but sea and rocks.'' Fortified in their house in the seaside village of Fanore, offering spectacular views of the Burren Hills, Galway Bay and the Aran Islands, the Kennedy Hills are not seeking sunshine but just a little peace: and maybe a few beers. We drop Paul off in McGann's for his ''cure''. n

LEGACY

of the

Kennedys

The Kennedy family was established as a political force by JFK's banker father, Joe Kennedy Sr, who was born in 1888. At 26, he married Rose Fitzgerald, daughter of Boston's mayor.

Joseph, who made his fortune running bootleg whisky during Prohibition, groomed his sons for high office. The Kennedy name is synonymous with brilliance, philandering, and tragedy. Tragedy and scandal make news, while the triumphs disappear like an Irish fog. Joseph and Rose moved to New York from Boston in the early 1920s to escape the puritanism of the Boston Irish and the snobbery of the establishment Wasps. John F Kennedy, above, elected America's first Roman Catholic president in 1960, is the most famous of the clan, and his assassination in November, 1963 carved the family name into the history books.

The death of JFK, killed at a time when America felt it was at the beginning of a new dawn, was one of the first televised global news events. The images seared the family into the conciousness of the world for evermore.

In 1968 Bobby Kennedy was also assassinated, leading many to speculate on the fabled ''curse of the Kennedys''. Two of Bobby's 11 children have since died - David in 1984 of a cocaine overdose, Michael in 1998 in a skiing accident.

Perhaps the greatest tragedy since the death of JFK was that of John Kennedy Jr in a plane crash off Long Island in 1999, with wife Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, her sister Lauren and a flying instructor.

While the tribe may be politically diminished, Kathleen Townsend Kennedy, Bobby's daughter, is playing more than a walk-on role in the saga. As Lt-Governor of Maryland she is seen as the last politically viable Kennedy. More than 40 years ago JFK visited Ireland and was received like a hero returning to his ancestral kingdom. Now, with Courtney, a Kennedy has finally returned to their roots.