Taylor Swift performing her Eras tour in London, 2024.Getty
Before Taylor Swift became a global cultural force, her Irish-born ancestors were making a very different journey, crossing the Atlantic on a packet ship bound for America. Their story of migration, courtship, hardship, and survival offers a striking Irish connection behind the singer’s unforgettable visit to Dublin.
Taylor Swift is an American singer-songwriter and cultural phenomenon. In 2006, her debut album blurred the line between country and pop music, with Swift citing Shania Twain, the Queen of Country Pop, as an inspiration.
In June 2024, Swift played a trio of sold-out concerts in Dublin on the European leg of her tour. Ahead of Taylor’s arrival in Ireland, the Irish Family History Centre was asked to investigate her Irish roots. Taylor Swift’s Irish-born great x3 grandparents on her paternal line were Susan Davis (c. 1817-1887) and Francis Gwynn (c. 1813-1886). In the summer of 1836, Susan and Francis met on board the ship Amy, bound for the Port of Philadelphia.
The headstone of Taylor Swifts great x3 grandfather, Francis Gwynn, in the Gwynn family grave of South Laurel Hill Cemetery, Philadelphia. Source: Findagrave
In 1839, Susan Davis and Francis Gwynn were married. They had six children: Ann,
John Davis, William, Francis Jnr., Joseph, and Mary Gwynn. Philadelphia was an industrial city, a destination for Irish and German immigrants offering excitement and opportunity.
Francis and Susan seized their chance and established a soap manufactory.
In the decades that followed, the business grew rapidly, and the family became affluent.
The Gwynn family lived the American dream, with six children, a successful business, and a large townhouse.
Tragically, after 1870, “giddy Fortune’s furious fickle wheel” turned, and catastrophe struck: five of the six children predeceased their parents. Then, between December 1886 and February 1887, the bereaved couple, Francis and Susan, died within a couple of months of each other. They were buried by their only surviving child, Mary Gwynn (married name Douglass). Despite the Gwynn family’s early prosperity, Mary was the only one of their children to have children of her own, becoming Taylor Swift’s great-x2 grandmother.
Taylor Swift’s Irish great x3 grandmother, Susan Davis, is listed as a dressmaker aged 21 on the 1836 manifest of the transatlantic packet ship Amy, sailing from Londonderry to Philadelphia.
We know that Susan was traveling as part of this group because the group’s luggage allowance in the hold of 2 chests and 2 boxes was marked in common for all their members.
In the 19th century, the freedom that young Irish women claimed for themselves, even emigrating without menfolk, was a feature of Irish emigration. Young Irish women traveling “alone” without chaperones scandalized other European immigrants. At least one social historian has mused that the practice may have grown out of the experience of seasonal migration. By the mid-19th century, between June and October, an estimated 160,000 workers crossed the Irish Channel to the U.K. every summer.
They were the “spailpíní fánacha” (Gaelic: itinerant farm laborers or “spalpeens”), small farmers who hired themselves to large farms at specific times in the agricultural calendar, returning home at the end of the season. These men left their wives and children under 16 at home to look after the family and the farm. The practice instilled a habit of independence among women from a young age. [3]
On board the ship, Susan met a fellow emigrant, Francis Gwynn, a 21-year-old weaver traveling with a group of friends.
The Amy‘s 1836 manifest also records the passage of Taylor’s Irish great x3 grandfather, 21-yearold weaver Francis Gwynn, on board with his friend group of Matty Buchanan (labourer, 25), John Brisland (sailor, 30) and Alex Owens (labourer, 24), sharing 3 chests and 2 boxes between them in the hold
A contemporary newspaper, The Londonderry Sentinel, carried a mention of the ship’s voyage.
The Londonderry Sentinel for Saturday 11th June 1836 carries a notice for passengers of the “fast-sailing, copper-fastened ship Amy” under Captain Green, whose departure is postponed until 15th June. © The British Library Board.
Sailing ships were dependent on the weather, especially the winds. In the 1830s, the fastest transatlantic crossing took 21 days, and the slowest was expected to take 29 days. [4] Amy‘s voyage took sixty-six days, more than twice as long as expected. The prevailing “westerlies” winds blowing west to east were always weakest in the summer, which may have stilled the ship on the Atlantic Ocean.
For Francis and Susan, perhaps this delay was no bad thing, as they met on board ship and were now given longer to become acquainted and mutually attached. It is even possible that this spate of unusually calm weather on the Atlantic forever changed the family tree and ancestral makeup of Taylor Swift!
In September 1836, the Londonderry Sentinel newspaper reported the safe arrival of the ship Amy in the port of Philadelphia on 20th August.
The Londonderry Sentinel for Saturday 24th September 1836 records the safe arrival of the Amy on 20th August after 66 days at sea, an unusually long time for Francis and Susan to become acquainted. © The British Library Board.
Whether or not their fledgling courtship was aided by the delayed crossing, the records show that in 1839, three years after their arrival in the U.S., Francis Gwynn and Susan Davis were married in the Church of the Redemption (Episcopalian) in Philadelphia, PA.
Taylor Swift’s Irish great x3 grandparents were married here at the Protestant Episcopalian Church of the Redemption, Philadelphia. (Photographed August 1858 by James E. M’Clees. Public domain).
Their first child, Ann Gwynn, was born on the 14th August 1840. Ann is not enumerated in the 1850 U.S. Census, and we found no further records of her. We think that she may have died as an infant. Five other children followed, their births following in quick succession: John Davis Gwynn (b. 6th March 1843); William Gwynn (b. 16th February 1845); Francis Gwynn Jnr. (b. 20th September 1846); Joseph Gwynn (b. 17th March 1850) and Mary Gwynn (Taylor’s great x2 grandmother, b. ca. 1854).
In the 1840s, Susan and Francis established a soap manufactory. The 1850 U.S. Census captures the Gwynn family at a moment in time, beginning to prosper, with Joseph an infant and Mary not yet born.
The 1850 U.S. Census for Middle Ward, Philadelphia, reveals Francis and Susan in their early thirties, already entrepreneurs, living with four young boys and Francis’ younger brother, an Irish Famine emigrant.
The father and head of the household, Francis Sr., reported owning real estate valued at US$18,000, a considerable fortune at the time.
Nothing lasts forever, and the Gwynns’ hopes were dashed by a series of tragic incidents. Between 1873 and 1886, all of the Gwynn family’s four sons died of natural causes: William in 1873, both Francis and John in 1874, and finally Joseph in 1886. Within weeks of Joseph’s heartbreaking death, Francis Gwynn Sr. died on 13th December 1886. Susan Gwynn (née Davis) died two months later, on 4th February 1887.
In 1883, Mary Gwynn married Charles Douglas of Delaware. There were two children of the marriage: Mary C. Douglas (1885-1907) and Charles Gwynn Douglas (1891-1959), Taylor Swift’s great-grandfather. Charles Douglas married Louise Baldi (1896-1976), and the couple had three children: Charles Douglas Jr. (1916-1997); Louise Douglas (1917-2003, married name Turner) and Rose Douglas (1920-1994, married name Swift, paternal grandmother to Taylor).
EPIC now hosts a framed illustration of the Gwynn family story created by
Wexford illustrator Lauren O’ Neill, gifted to Taylor Swift during her visit to Ireland in 2024. Told across nine panels, it traces their journey from textile roots in Ulster to their Atlantic crossing, marriage, and family life in Philadelphia.
The artwork moves from hope and romance to loss and legacy, ending with swifts in flight, a powerful symbol of how love and resilience shape generations.
This remarkable family story and more like it can be found in the latest issue of "Irish Lives Remembered", Ireland's premier genealogy magazine.
Researching your family history?
With more than 70 million people claiming Irish heritage, interest in tracing Irish roots continues to grow. If you're looking to explore your own Irish family story, expert genealogists at the Irish Family History Centre at EPIC can help guide you on your journey.
Find out more about the Irish Family History Centre and EPIC here.
End notes:
[1] Dr. Eloise Faichney, “Fearless: How Taylor Swift is owning her narrative”, University of
Melbourne website, 8 February 2024 (accessed 09.09.2024)
[2] “Passenger Lists of Vessels arriving in Philadelphia 1800-1882”, Familysearch (accessed
21.02.2024)
[3] Caitriona Clear, Social Change and Everyday Life in Ireland 1850-1922 (Manchester University Press, 2007)
[4] Robert Greenhalgh Albion, Square Riggers on Schedule: The New York Sailing Packets to
England, France, and the Cotton Ports (Princeton University Press, 1938)
[5] Morgan Kelly and Cormac Ó Grada, “Speed under sail during the Early Industrial Revolution (c. 1750-1830)” in The Economic History Review vol. 72, issue 2, 21st February 2018
[6] U.S. Census, 1870, Philadelphia Ward 26, on Ancestry.com