FINALLY AT PEACE

Irish singer Sinéad O’Connor will be remembered as much for her beautiful voice as for her tragic, troubled life

- NICIDE WET

IN THE weeks before the tragedy friends described her as seeming happier than she’d been in a long time.

She’d moved back to London after 23 years, settling into a flat in a vibey area in the southeast of the city. She’d just finished making a Sky documentary, Nothing Compares. She was putting the finishing touches on an album set for release next year, and she was planning a world tour.

In a video posted on Twitter on 9 July she takes her followers on a tour of her new apartment, pointing out a vase of sunflowers, a sleek kitchen and a guitar on the wall she’d use to “write some tunes”.

But Sinéad O’Connor also spoke of her unbearable sadness: losing her beloved son, 17-year-old Shane, who took his life last year while on suicide watch.

“I look like s**t,” she said in the video. “But your kid unfortunately passing away – it isn’t good for one’s body or soul, to be fair.”

Now the 56-year-old Irish musician is gone too – and if there’s a measure of comfort her loved ones and fans can draw it’s that she’s finally free of pain.

Sinéad poured out her grief in a series of anguished tweets in the months following Shane’s death, calling him “the love of my life, the lamp of my soul”.

“We were one soul in two halves,” she said. “He was the only person who loved me unconditionally.”

Sinéad – best remembered for her biggest hit, the hauntingly beautiful Nothing Compares 2 U – had a long history of mental illness and her health deteriorated after Shane died.

Yet as the tributes poured in after her passing, people also spoke of her sharp wit, her self-deprecating sense of humour and her relentless potty mouth.