‘Gone too young’: Fans pay respects and leave flowers outside Sinéad O’Connor’s former home

Fans and locals left flowers outside the former home in Bray, Co Wicklow, of singer Sinéad O’Connor the day after the news of her death broke on Wednesday.

Those outside her former home on Strand Road left flowers and condolences cards on the wall of the property. O’Connor sold the house in 2021 and was living in an apartment in London at the time of her death.

One local stopped to pay his respects. “She had a fantastic voice and she lived here for good few years in Bray,” said Patrick Brady (82). “I met her a good few times up in Enniskerry. She was fantastic, a lovely woman to talk to.”

Despite achieving worldwide fame from her music, Mr Brady said O’Connor “was very down-to-earth”.

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He said there was “definitely a hole left” in Bray by her death at a “very young age”, and that her legacy was the body of music she left behind. “She did a lot of good things, so we just have to keep the good memories alive,” he said.

Willie Braine from Shankhill stopped outside the house with his daughter Hally and grandson Zac. “She was an icon with her voice and her eyes,” he said, “but it was more that, she had freedom of spirit, freedom of heart.”

He said she was “honest when she spoke” and truly believed in the causes she championed. “That is what got people to follow her.”

He continued: “She sang from the heart, and you really believed in her.”

[ Sinéad O’Connor: Book of condolences opens as fans place tributes to ‘beloved’ singer ]

Mr Braine said he sympathised with the struggles she had gone through, which gave her music renewed importance to him.

He said that the locals in Bray welcomed O’Connor into the community. “They didn’t annoy her, they knew who she was, but they just said hello. I think that gave her some peace as well, because she was able to walk around freely.”

Dennis Dwyer, 42, dropped flowers to the singer’s former home. He said that O’Connor’s “openness about the struggles she faced” was a source of inspiration for him. “On a personal level, from struggles I have faced in my life, I can understand on some level what she struggled with.”

Mr Dwyer said that the Irish singer was “one of the most significant figures in Irish history”. He said that as both an artist and as a singer, her work “touched people’s hearts and souls” but that her activism and political contributions “touched people’s minds”.

He said that O’Connor was ahead of her time in her “understanding of the systemic problems that hurt and destroyed so many lives” in Ireland.

“She was refreshingly devoid of self-pity,” he said, “but I think her story to me shouldn’t be defined by her struggles. Rather she should be remembered by her warrior-like spirit in helping to shed a light on injustices.”

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Mr Dwyer said that O’Connor “was a human in the fullest sense. I would see her welcoming of refugees – her understanding that we are all on this journey together – trying to spread love and understanding was at the heart of what she did in the world.”

George O’Hanlon (50), from Donaghmede, said he grew up listening to Sinéad O’Connor’s music. “She was one of our own, she was a fantastic singer and an eccentric. She was loved by the whole of Ireland and she will be sadly missed,” he said.

“You could hear the sorrow in her voice, the pain that she was in. Her voice was just so beautiful.”

Speaking in Dalkey, near where O’Connor was born in Glenageary, Frank O’Toole (87) said: “I often saw her around here, she was a local girl.”

Mr O’Toole said that the Dublin singer was “treated like anyone else” in the area and that the world-famous singer was “very normal, really, you wouldn’t know she was anything more than that”. He said he hadn’t seen her in the area in the past few years, but that he was moved by her death as she was “gone too young”.