Mark Sheehan took time out from The Script to nurture his family months before his death.
Mark Sheehan took time out from The Script to nurture his family months before his death
The band’s guitarist’s shock passing was announced on Friday (14.04.23) evening by the band, who said he had died in hospital aged 46 after a “brief illness”.
Mark’s best friend and Script frontman Danny O’Donoghue, 42, revealed last May how his beloved bandmate needed a break from being the “engine” of the group they co-founded to be with his wife Rina, who Mark married when he was 25 and with whom he had three children.
Danny told the Sunday World newspaper in May 2022 about Mark’s hiatus from the band: “His children needed a father and his wife needed a husband.
“He’s been the engine of The Script for such a long time, (I told him) that, ‘If you want to take a bit of time out for your family you are more than welcome to, and I insist on you going and doing it.’
“He took a little bit of time off – ‘You get refreshed, then you come back with a new zest for life.’
“And I believe it was the best thing that could have happened for all of us.”
Mark missed nearly a year of gigs in 2021 and early 2022 to be close to his loved ones before reuniting with the group last summer for a string of concerts.
They included gigs at the SSE Arena, Belfast, on 14 and 15 May, Dublin’s 3 Arena in June and an outdoor concert in Musgrave Park in Cork on 19 June.
Mark’s wife Rina was the love of his life, and he told the Irish Mirror in 2008: “Rina is from Texas – we met on the road. I was producing and working in different studios and she was a studio session singer and backing singer. And we just kind of clicked in the usual way you do.”
The couple had their first child, son Cameron 18 years ago, and have two other young children, Avery and Lil.