Fresh tragedy for Kennedy family as RFK's granddaughter found dead

Assassinated US presidential candidate Robert Kennedy’s granddaughter Saoirse Kennedy Hill has died, according to family members.

Saoirse Kennedy Hill, granddaughter of Robert Kennedy, has died. (AP Photo)

The Kennedy statement followed reports of a death at the family compound in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts.

No further details about her death were released, although US media report she died of an apparent drug overdose.

The 22-year-old was a communications major at Boston College, according to the New York Times, and had suffered from depression.

Saoirse Kennedy Hill, granddaughter of Robert Kennedy, has died. (AP Photo)

Hill was the daughter of Robert and Ethel Kennedy’s fifth child, Courtney, and Paul Michael Hill, one of the Guildford Four falsely convicted of the 1974 IRA 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 worked with indigenous communities to build schools in Mexico.

Her death is another in a long line of tragedies for the Kennedy political dynasty. Grandfather Robert Kennedy was assassinated during a presidential campaign in Los Angeles in 1968. His brother President John F. Kennedy was assassinated five years earlier in Texas.

The Kennedy family released a statement. (AP Photo)

JFK's son John F. Kennedy Jr was killed in a plane crash in 1999 along with his wife, Carolyn Kennedy, and sister-in-law, Lauren Bessette.

In 1984 David Kennedy, one of Robert Kennedy's children, died in a Florida hotel after a drug overdose. It was reported he had seen his father's assassination live on TV as a boy and struggled with addiction. He was 28.