Sinead O’Connor’s brother read a poem he wrote about birdsong at her funeral.

Joseph O’Connor shared the 10-verse work on Tuesday (08.08.23) in front of her family and A-list friends including Bono and Sir Bob Geldof when she was laid to rest in what was said to be a multi-denominational farewell in the town of Bray, Co Wicklow, in her native Ireland.

Joseph’s ‘Blackbird in Dun Laoghaire’ poem appeared to compare Sinead to a blackbird singing out its heart in Dun Laoghaire, Dublin – the city where the ‘Nothing Compares 2 U’ singer was born on 8 December 1966.

His opening lines were: “There’s a blackbird in Dun Laoghaire, When I’m walking with my sons, Through the laneways, Called ‘The Metals’

By the train-tracks, And he sings among the dandelions, And bottle-tops and stones, Serenading purple ivy, Weary tree-trunks.”

It went on about the bird: “And I have it in my head, That I can recognise his song, Pick him out, I mean distinct From all his flock-mates. Impossible, I know.”

Joseph’s final verse was: “Getting lost in the drizzle, Mercy weaves her nest, In the wildflowers and the leaves, There are stranger things in heaven, Than a blackbird believes.”

Sinead, who was found dead on 26 July aged 56 in a £3,000-a-month London apartment after moving back to the city from Ireland for the first time in 23 years to work on what turned out to be her final album.

She became Muslim in 2018 and adopted the name Shuhada’ Sadaqat, and her burial spot marked with a simple golden plaque carrying her name and her birth and death dates.

Her cause of death has not yet been made public but police are not treating her death as suspicious after they said she was found “unresponsive” in her flat in south east London.