The granddaughter of the late Robert F. Kennedy has died following an apparent overdose at the family's compound in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts.

Saoirse Kennedy Hill, 22, was at the compound, the home of her grandmother, Ethel Kennedy, 91, on Thursday afternoon, when emergency personnel were called.

She was taken to Cape Cod Hospital in Hyannis, after what is believed to be an overdose, The New York Times said, citing family and friends.

According to the newspaper, she was pronounced dead at the hospital. In a statement released to media, the Kennedy family confirmed the young woman’s death.

"Our hearts are shattered by the loss of our beloved Saoirse," the family statement said. "Her life was filled with hope, promise and love."

The statement quoted her grandmother as saying: "The world is a little less beautiful today."

A Day That Shook The World: John F. Kennedy assassinated Show all 8 1 /8 A Day That Shook The World: John F. Kennedy assassinated A Day That Shook The World: John F. Kennedy assassinated President John F. Kennedy (1917 - 1963) and his wife Jacqueline Kennedy ride with secret agents in an open car motorcade shortly before the president was assassinated in Dallas, Texas, November 22, 1963. Getty Images A Day That Shook The World: John F. Kennedy assassinated Cliff Michelmore pointing to the path of gun shots which killed President John F Kennedy, on a model reconstruction of the Dealey Plaza, Dallas, in the USA. Getty Images A Day That Shook The World: John F. Kennedy assassinated A man holding the rifle used by Lee Harvey Oswald in his assassination of the American President John F Kennedy. Getty Images A Day That Shook The World: John F. Kennedy assassinated circa 1965: The Texas School Book Depository at Dallas, Texas, from which US president John F Kennedy is thought to have been shot. Getty Images A Day That Shook The World: John F. Kennedy assassinated 23rd November 1963: A woman buys a newspaper from a street vendor for the latest headlines concerning the assassination of John F Kennedy. Getty Images A Day That Shook The World: John F. Kennedy assassinated The family and friends of the assassinated American President John F Kennedy (1917 - 1963) mourning his death. Getty Images A Day That Shook The World: John F. Kennedy assassinated Members of the Kennedy family at the funeral of assassinated president John F. Kennedy at Washington DC. From left: Senator Edward Kennedy, Caroline Kennedy, (aged 6), Jackie Kennedy (1929 - 1994), Attorney General Robert Kennedy and John Kennedy (1960 - 1999) (aged 3). Getty Images A Day That Shook The World: John F. Kennedy assassinated 22nd November 1963: US statesman John F Kennedy, 35th president of the US, and his wife Jackie Kennedy travelling in the presidential motorcade at Dallas, before his assassination. Getty Images

A Barnstable Police cruiser sits at the top of Marchant Avenue as police investigate Saoirse Kennedy Hill's death (REUTERS)

The Cape and Islands District Attorney's Office confirmed police officers had been called to the residence and the matter remained under investigation.

Ms Hill was a student at Boston College, where she was a communication major and vice president of the Student Democrats, according to The New York Times.

It said she had written about struggling with mental illness while a student at a private preparatory school in Massachusetts, the Deerfield Academy, in 2016.

Ms Hill was the only child of Paul Michael Hill and Courtney Kennedy Hill, who was the fifth of 11 children of Ethel and Robert Kennedy.

Her death is the latest in a long series of tragedies that has beset one of America’s political dynasties.

In 1968 Robert F. Kennedy, then a US senator for New York, was assassinated in Los Angeles just after winning the California primary race for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Two of Robert and Ethel Kennedy’s sons suffered untimely deaths – David Kennedy, of a drug overdose in 1984 at age 28 and Michael Kennedy in 1997 at age 39.

RFK's older brother, President John F. Kennedy, was himself assassinated in 1963, in Dallas, and his son, John Jr., Kennedy died with his wife and sister-in-law when the plane he was piloting crashed in the Atlantic off Martha's Vineyard, not far from Hyannis Port in 1999.

Ms Hill's death comes weeks after the 50th anniversary of the scandal surrounding a fatal car accident in which RFK's younger brother, then-Senator Edward Kennedy, drove off a bridge connecting the tiny island of Chappaquiddick to Martha's Vineyard, killing his passenger, Mary Jo Kopechne.

The murky circumstances of that crash effectively dashed Edward Kennedy's presidential ambitions.