Sinéad O’Connor to be laid to rest in Ireland tomorrow
The singer's funeral will take place in Bray, County Wicklow, tomorrow.
By Nick Reilly
Sinéad O’Connor’s funeral will be held in Ireland tomorrow (August 8), with fans invited to line the procession route and pay a “last goodbye” to the music icon.
Fans will line a route along the seafront in Bray, County Wicklow, as the funeral procession takes a route that will pass the home where O’Connor lived for the last 15 years.
O’Connor – who died last month at the age of 56 – will be laid to rest at a private burial, with a statement from her family encouraging fans to line Bray’s seafront from 10.30am and pay their respects.
“Sinead loved living in Bray and the people in it. With this procession, her family would like to acknowledge the outpouring of love for her from the people of Co Wicklow and beyond, since she left last week to go to another place,” the statement said.
“The Gardai have asked that people gather, if they would like to say a last goodbye to the singer, from 10.30am on Tuesday along the Bray seafront.”
In the wake of O’Connor’s death, a sea of tributes flooded in as her friends, peers and fans reflected on her life and artistic impact.
How do you eulogise someone that you never knew well, but were blessed to have the honour of working with?” wrote Massive Attack on Twitter; the pair collaborated with her on their record 100th Window.
“Honestly. To bear witness to her voice, intimately in the studio,” they went on. “On the road every single person stopped—dropped their tools during soundcheck. The fire in her eyes made you understand that her activism was a soulful reflex & not a political gesture.”
Elsewhere, other collaborators of O’Connor’s paid tribute, with Jah Wobble, with whom she worked on his track ‘Visions of You’, saying that she had “the essence of a Celtic female warrior”, while Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan shared: “I knew Sinéad a little, having met her at a show of hers and then later when she was living at the Walker’s home outside of Chicago.”
In an exclusive tribute for Rolling Stone, Phoebe Bridgers also recalled how her devotion to O’Connor led her to shave her head in high school.
“I probably first heard her thanks to my mom, who had — and still has — the coolest music tastes. Even before I heard Sinéad’s music, I knew she was a revolutionary,” said Bridgers.
“I was obsessed with her and the ‘Nothing Compares 2 U’ video. I even had a very, very short-shaved head in high school. I definitely shaved it for her. I have the worst-shaped head, so there weren’t many people I would have shaved my head for.