Sinead O'Connor's dad ‘still misses her' and visits her grave every week

Sunday World

17-07-2025

Seán O'Connor said he cried for two straight weeks following the death of his daughter.
Sinéad O'Connor's father Seán has opened up the impact of his daughter's passing nearly two years on from the Irish singer's death in July 2023.
The 87-year-old revealed he cried for two weeks after the death of the Nothing Compares 2 U singer and continues to visit her grave every week.
The Dublin woman passed away of natural causes on July 26 that year at her home in south London.
"When Sinéad passed, I cried my eyes out for a fortnight. I still miss her," Seán O'Connor told Oliver Callan on RTÉ Radio 1. "Of course it's a comfort (the outpouring of grief by the public), but Sinéad had two personas.
"One was in the public arena and the other was with her family and I saw her funeral as being lovely for her fans.
Sinéad O'Connor. Photo: Getty
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"At a personal level, I've never had publicity in respect of Sinéad and it made it all the more hurtful for all of us when she died.
"I visit her grave every week... and we have a conversation and I bring her up to date."
Seán continued by discussing how fame was 'cruel' to his daughter, and that the two would argue but generally got on 'very well' – with the pair even going on a trip together just months before her death.
"Sinéad could be outrageous in the public world and she could be outrageous in the family, she could be cranky. In the end I always had compassion for her, she was always on the edge.
"We got on very well, most of the time, sometimes she'd fall out with me." It's a very great help for me to know that in January, two years ago, we were on the phone and we agreed we'd go to Wexford for a three-night holiday. We did. Together. It was the greatest bit of gas.
'We went out to the hotel. We went in to check into two rooms, myself and Sinéad, and we went off for a drive and we came back. I had been upgraded. I had a suite with chocolates, a bunch of flowers.
'Jesus, you couldn't go anywhere with Sinéad, but someone would come over in the back of beyond in Wexford, 'oh Sinead, how are you, I love that song of yours'.
"So we had that and we'd arranged to go away again in April, but when April came she said she'd go to England instead and I didn't see her again, other than when she came home from England [after her death].
'So it was a sad time, the strength of the family around then helped me and I'm beginning to deal with it now.'
Thousands of mourners attended the much-loved singer's funeral in Bray and she was subsequently laid to rest in Deansgrange Cemetery.