The funeral Mass for Senator Edward Kennedy has taken place in Boston.
US President Barack Obama praised Senator Kennedy as a voice for the poor and powerless in a eulogy that remembered his achievements as it avoided politicizing his death.
In January 2008, Sen Kennedy endorsed Mr Obama, who was serving his first term as a senator, for the Democratic presidential nomination.
Many saw the endorsement as the passing of the political torch to a new generation.
'I, like so many others in the city where he worked for nearly half a century, knew him as a colleague, a mentor, and above all, a friend,' Mr Obama said.
'He was a product of an age when the joy and nobility of politics prevented differences of party and philosophy from becoming barriers to cooperation and mutual respect, a time when adversaries still saw each other as patriots'.
Senator Kennedy will be buried next to his brothers John and Robert Kennedy at the Arlington cemetery in Washington.
Former US presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Jimmy Carter were at the funeral.
The Taoiseach, Brian Cowen, and Northern Ireland Deputy First Martin McGuinness were also among those in attendance.
Mourners from Hollywood star Jack Nicholson to Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer packed the church beneath soaring arches and stained glass.
Cellist Yo-Yo Ma played and opera star Placido Domingo sang as the sound of rain could be heard pounding the roof.
Readings came from several generations of Kennedys and his sons Edward Jr and Patrick paid moving tributes to their father.
Senator Kennedy was the youngest of the Kennedy sons and was left to take up the helm of the political dynasty after the assassinations of president John F. Kennedy in Dallas 1963 and of Robert Kennedy while on the presidential campaign trail in June 1968.
Some 50,000 people have paid their respects to the long-serving US senator, who died on Tuesday of brain cancer.
