The Lion has left us. In March of this year, President Obama referred to Senator Ted Kennedy as "a person who never stopped asking what he could do for his country."

Brother of America's first Irish Catholic President, a founding member of the Executive Committee of Friends of Ireland in Congress, and a voice for so many Irish who came before him and will surely follow, he treasured his ancestors' homeland.

From the peace process in Northern Ireland to opening America to millions of new immigrants, his work endures in positively affecting the lives of people not only in Massachusetts and the US but across the globe. When we see the current health care debate we of course think of him but millions of dollars of research funding and health benefits for Americans bear his mark as well. Millions more that he fought for and secured enabled children of working class families like myself and my brothers to attend college. Those that were not college bound benefited from job training programs that he championed along with increases in the minimum wage.

Fierce with his passion for liberal causes Senator Kennedy was famously able to reach across the aisle as well and work with Republican colleagues to pass meaningful legalisation such as the State Children's Health Insurance program crafted with conservative Republican Senator Orrin Hatch with whom he formed a lasting alliance.

His humanity reached us too as we suffered along with him through his family tragedies. "I know what it's like," he said to families who lost loved ones on September 11th when he personally contacted them. He touched them and he touched us all.

Dennis Desmond Chair Democrats Abroad Ireland