Sinéad O'Connor to be honoured by thousands of fans as her private funeral is held

8 August 2023

Sinéad O'Connor will be honoured by thousands of fans as her private funeral is held this morning.

Sinéad O'Connor will be honoured by thousands of fans as her private funeral is held this morning

Her followers are expected to line the streets of Bray, County Wicklow in the singer’s native Ireland on Tuesday (08.08.23) to pay respects to the music icon and human rights activist, found dead in London aged 56 on 26 July.

In a statement, the family said Sinéad “loved living in Bray and the people in it”.

Irish police have asked members of the public to gather between 11.30am and 12.30pm.

Road closures will be in place between these times in the Stran Road/Promenade area, while all other traffic will be diverted onto the Adelaide Road.

Gardaí will be in attendance and warn that further road closures may be put in place.

A funeral cortege will then pass through the seaside town, stopping briefly to allow people to pay their final respects, with the route beginning at the Harbour Bar end of Strand Road, where Sinéad lived for 15 years, before it heads along the seafront.

Police are urging those planning to travel to the seafront in Bray for the funeral procession to use public transport, if possible, as the Dublin Area Rapid Transit) can bring people straight there.

Sinéad’s cause of death has not yet been made public but police say it was not suspicious.

A tribute to O'Connor was unveiled on a cliff close to Bray over the weekend with large, white letters spelling out “Éire loves Sinéad”.

Designed by Dublin-based creative agency The Tenth Man, its creative director Richard Seabrooke told BBC News Sinéad’s death had hit him like a “tonne of bricks”.

He added it was important that Ireland “got to say goodbye” to the singer, saying: “Her story is intertwined with ours over the last couple of decades," he said.

“To see how much she has helped change this country and see how much this country has changed because of Sinéad... we just felt like it needed to be said and luckily a couple of people agreed to go up a cliff at dawn time.”