Taylor Swift is finally back in Dublin this weekend, bringing her Eras tour to more than 150,000 enchanted fans at the Aviva Stadium over three nights.
To celebrate the singer’s return, The Irish Times Women’s Podcast has gathered a panel of Swifties to talk about her music, stardom and her ultra-dedicated fanbase.
One of those Swifties is genealogist Kayleigh Bealin from the Irish Family History Centre, a part of the research team at EPIC The Irish Emigration Museum, who delved into Swift’s family history, finding Irish relations on both her mother and father’s side.
“It was such a fun experience, we got to look at her lyrics, her life, her family history,” Bealin tells Róisín Ingle on The Women’s Podcast.
“It’s been amazing looking at points in Taylor’s life, and then points in her family history, that are really very similar. The entrepreneurial spirit that she has… we’ve found that she didn’t just pick that up from the ground… this ability to pivot and go with whatever life throws at you, we saw in her ancestry,” she adds.
Swift is not the only global superstar that Bealin has researched. She and her team have also been busy tracing back the Irish roots of singer Shania Twain. They hope to present Twain with her ancestry details ahead of her gig at Malahide Castle tomorrow, Friday 28th June.
“She’s a very busy woman, but she’s big into family history, all her family are, they are absolutely gorgeous people, so we have work that we are going to present to her… it will be wonderful,” Bealin says.
“So will this mean in the future we’ll have Taylor Swift and Shania Twain plazas?’ asks Louise Bruton, a writer and DJ who also joins today’s Swiftie panel.
“I hope so, and if I’ve anything to do with it, all the music they play will be Taylor and Shania back to back, on a loop,” Bealin jokes.
We also hear from creative writing student and member of University of Galway’s Swiftie Society, Ella Conneff, who explains what Swift’s music means to her and how it brings people together.
You can listen back to this episode in the player above or wherever you get your podcasts.
