How Taylor Swift and many other famous people have close ties to Northern Ireland

But there are a number of other famous faces from the world of music, film and even international politics who also have close family ties to Northern Ireland – something you may not have noticed.

Earlier this week, the Irish Emigration Museum EPIC discovered that Taylor’s connection to Northern Ireland began 172 years ago, on June 11, 1836, when her great-great-great-grandparents Susan Davis and Francis Gwynn – both 21 – emigrated from Ireland to the United States aboard the ship Amy from Londonderry.

Three years after their two-month journey culminated with the ship docking in Philadelphia on August 20, the couple married and had six children named Ann, John, William, Francis, Joseph and Mary – Taylor Swift’s great-great-grandmother.

As Taylor Swift’s ancestral connection suggests, over ten million Irish people have left these shores to start a life elsewhere.

Another historical love story also has connections to another music giant currently dominating the charts – Ed Sheeran.

In 2017, after the release of his album “Divide,” Ed shared some of his family history with his fans in the form of the song “Nancy Mulligan” – named after his late grandmother.

The song tells the story of Anne Mary, as she was also known, a Catholic nurse from Gorey in County Wexford, and William Sheeran, a Protestant from Belfast, and how they fell in love during World War II and married on the Wexford border before moving to London, where Ed’s father John grew up.

In the lyrics of Nancy Mulligan, Sheeran says: “You know Nancy, I adore you. I’m a farm boy, born outside Belfast. I never cared about the king and the crown, ’cause my heart lies in the south. There’s no difference, I assure you.”

Two singles from the album also feature Belfast-based traditional band Beoga, another interesting connection to the region, and his hit single “Galway Girl” from the same album mentions the Antrim town of Carrickfergus.

In 2014, singer-songwriter Katie Melua received an honorary doctorate from Queen’s University Belfast.

What many people don’t know is that the singer of “Wonderful Life” actually grew up in Northern Ireland after her family emigrated from the Georgian city of Kutaisi following the Georgian civil war when she was nine years old.

Her father worked as a heart surgeon at the Royal Victoria Hospital and the family lived in Belfast near the Falls Road until Katie was 14.

In a previous interview, she told Sunday Life how growing up here inspired her creativity.

“One of the books that had the most impact on me as a child in Belfast was ‘Under The Hawthorn Tree,'” she said.

“It was one of those books that made me feel at one with the Irish. It’s extraordinary what literary works come out of this country.”

“The talent that has emerged from Northern Ireland is extraordinary,” she said.

“What else can I add? I think it must have something to do with the Northern Ireland conflict that prompted people to write, and I think that’s what’s happening right now.”

Earlier this year it was revealed that none other than grunge icon and Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain has connections to the quiet town of Carrickmore in County Tyrone.

Samuel Cobane was born on 23 May 1823 and grew up in the parish of Dunmisk. He and his wife Letitia were married in St. Columbkille’s Church in 1854 and six of their children were born in Carrickmore.

In 1875 the family left Ireland and sailed to Ontario, Canada.

Like many other Irish people who emigrated to North America at that time, their names were changed or misspelled in official documents and the Cobanes became the Cobains.

Their descendants eventually moved to Washington State, and the family line continued with Kurt Cobain, who was born on February 20, 1967, in Aberdeen, Washington, and became a famous musician.

Earlier this year, in April, a plaque was placed in the Patrician Hall of St. Columbkille’s Church in Carrickmore to commemorate Cobain’s Irish roots.

Outside the world of music, Tyrone also has some other notable descendants, including the first man on the moon – Neil Armstrong – whose family hails from both Clogher and Irvinestown in Fermanagh.

Jurassic Park and Peaky Blinders star Sam Neill is also from Mid Ulster. He was born in Omagh before his family moved to Tyrella in Co Down, where his father was an officer in the Royal Irish Fusiliers in nearby Ballykinlar.

When he was just seven, his family moved to Christchurch, New Zealand.

Last year, Sam revealed in his book Did I Ever Tell You This? that he found watching the Orange Marches “strangely frightening” when he was growing up in Northern Ireland.

“There were loud drums, sweaty, flushed faces, orange sashes and bowler hats, and an unsettling sense of togetherness like I had never experienced before,” he recalls.

Another television star born in Northern Ireland is famous survivalist Bear Grylls, who was born in Donaghadee on June 7, 1974 and has some surprising connections to local politics.

Grylls, who rose to fame with his adventure series Man Vs Wild, which aired from 2006 to 2011, and produces a number of successful survival shows, reportedly comes from the “upper crust” of the Conservatives and Unionists.

His father was the Tory Sir Michael Grylls, a former MP for Surbiton.

His mother was Sarah Ford, later Lady Sarah Grylls, the daughter of the Ulster Unionist MP for North Down, Patricia Ford.

Mrs Ford was the first female MP from Northern Ireland, winning the North Down seat at a by-election necessitated by the death of her father, Sir Walter Smiles, in the Princess Victoria ferry tragedy in 1953.

She was also the first woman to sit in the House of Commons representing an Irish constituency.

Bear also previously thanked his father for his love of fishing and angling and shared fond memories of his childhood in North Down.

“I used to go fishing with my father a lot,” he remembers. “When we caught a freshly caught trout, we would stick a knife vertically into the spine, turn it over, stick it under the skin and then fry it in the pan. Beautiful.”

TV presenter and former Weakest Link host Anne Robinson also has a surprising connection to this part of the country.

Her mother, Anne Josephine (née Wilson), came from County Fermanagh.

Former US President Bill Clinton, a well-known supporter of the Good Friday Agreement, also has ties to the southwest.

He appears to be a relative of Lucas Cassidy, who went to America from County Fermanagh around 1750.

Apart from Mr Clinton and current US President Joe Biden, who boast of their Irish roots from Co Louth and Co Mayo, other residents of the White House in previous generations also came from this island.

Famous Republican President Richard Millhouse Nixon previously revealed connections on both sides of his family: his ancestors left County Antrim for America around 1753, while the Millhouses came from Carrickfergus and Ballymoney, also in County Antrim.

Father and son George HW Bush and George W. Bush have previously indicated that they have links to both Co Antrim and Co Down.

William Gault, a maternal ancestor of George Snr, was most likely born near Cullybackey in County Antrim, while another ancestor is believed to have come from Rathfriland in County Down.

William Gault emigrated with his wife Margaret and settled in Tennessee in 1796. Tennessee became a state in the year it was founded.

About two centuries later, two of their descendants achieved the unique feat of being the only father and son to serve as U.S. presidents.