Irish singer Sinead O’Connor, whose death at the age of 56 was announced by her family on Wednesday, was found “unconscious” in London and her death is not considered “suspicious”, British police said Thursday. “Police were called at 11:18 a.m. (local time) on Wednesday July 26 after an unconscious woman was reported to a residential address in the SE24 area,” the capital’s southern postcode, London police said in a statement. forwarded to AFP. “A 56-year-old woman was pronounced dead at the scene… The death is not being considered suspicious.”
“It is with great sadness that we announce the death of our beloved Sinéad,” the family said in a statement released Wednesday by public broadcaster RTE. “His family and friends are devastated.” As of now, the cause of death has not yet been revealed.
The artist is survived by his three children. Her son died last year at the age of 17. The singer had canceled a series of concerts last year due to her “mourning”, her teams explaining at the time that she had made this decision “for her own health and well-being”.
Sinead O’Connor is also known for having caused many controversies. She said she was abused by her mother as a child and strongly criticized the Catholic Church, which she accused of failing to protect child victims of sexual abuse. In 1992, she had torn on American television an image of Pope John Paul II. She again caused a scandal in 1999 when a dissident Irish Church ordained her a “priestess”. She then gradually disappeared from the front of the stage, however trying her hand at reggae in 2005 on her album Throw Down Your Arms after settling for a time in Jamaica and exploring Rastafari beliefs.
His death sparked many reactions in Ireland, with Prime Minister Leo Varadkar saying he was “really sorry to learn of the death of Sinead O’Connor”. “His music was loved around the world and his talent was unparalleled and incomparable,” he added on Twitter, now renamed “X”. O’Connor was “one of our greatest musical icons, and someone deeply loved by the people of Ireland, and beyond”, also reacted the deputy first minister and former head of government Micheal Martin . The singer of the British group The Charlatans, Tim Burgess, also paid tribute to the singer who “embodied the spirit of punk”. “She didn’t compromise, which made her life more difficult.”
In recent years, the singer has been pouring out her feelings on social media, threatening her former associates with legal action, opening up about her physical and mental health problems, sharing her suicidal thoughts and indulging in her complicated relationship with her family and their children. She announced in 2018 that she had converted to Islam.
