Robert Kennedy's granddaughter, Saoirse Hill, dies of drug overdose

Saoirse Kennedy Hill, 22, a granddaughter of Robert F Kennedy, died apparently of a drug overdose.

The family announced on Thursday night. She died at the family's two-storied compound in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts.

The statement was given by Brian Wright O'Connor, a spokesman for Saoirse Hill's uncle, former congressman Joseph P Kennedy II. Saoirse, a communications major at Boston college was also an outspoken advocate of the MeToo movement. She was the daughter of Courtney, Robert and Ethel Kennedy's fifth child and Paul Michael Hill, one of four falsely convicted in the 1974 Irish Republican Army bombings of two pubs.

"She lit up our lives with her love, her peals of laughter and her generous spirit," the statement said, adding that she was passionate about human rights and women's empowerment and worked with indigenous communities to build schools in Mexico.

The Kennedy family has long been subject to tragedies over the years. John F Kennedy and his brother Robert Kennedy were both assassinated in the 1960s. John Kennedy's son, John Kennedy Jr died in a plane crash in 1999. Robert Kennedy's son, David Kennedy, died of a drug overdose, aged 28. Ted Kennedy's daughter Kara Kennedy died of a heart attack, aged 51, while Mary Kennedy, Robert Kennedy's daughter-in-law killed herself at age 52. The series of unfortunate events has led people and family members to believe that the family is cursed.

The Cape & Islands district attorney's office said Barnstable police responded to a home "for a reported unattended death" Thursday afternoon, according to a statement cited by news outlets.

"The world is a little less beautiful today," the statement quoted Hill's 91-year-old grandmother, Ethel Kennedy, as saying.

Robert F Kennedy had served as attorney general in the administration of his brother, President John F Kennedy.