Remembering Sinéad

Lively up yourself… Marij Kuchler FRI26JULY24

t started out as a small Facebook shout-out by two faraway fans, Babbette Wigglesworth in New Zealand and Marij Kuchler in the Netherlands, last September.

The first-year anniversary of Sinéad O’Connor’s passing was approaching, and the idea of a gathering in her adopted hometown of Bray seemed like a good idea.

And from that simple Thank You For Hearing Me shout-out, a mini-festival was born.

“It was something we really had no idea about how, or what would happen on the day,” says Marij as the Bray bandstand is prepared for the evening’s musical celebration last night, “but we knew we had to do something to remember, and to truly celebrate, Sinéad O’Connor…”

With fans from near and very, very far meeting up on Thursday, July 25th, it was on the Friday when the celebrations began, the early birds catching the Bray sunrise, followed hikes and hugs all afternoon before the main event at the Bray bandstand – promising ‘some shenanigans and robust singing, food, drink, and some laughs’. The evening culminated with a medley of Sinéad’s most-loved songs, finishing, of course, with Nothing Compares 2 U.

And as social media lit up with tribute cover songs, paintings and poems through the day, Bray Men’s Shed and their Vale Of Avoca counterparts unveiled a tribute bench for Ms O’Connor, inscribed with the words, ‘Nothing But Love’…

Relying more on people power than any official committee, the day turned out to be the kind of rambling, rockin’ celebration that The Artist Later Known As Shuhada Sadaqat would no doubt approve of. 

Certainly moreso than March’s Bratz doll. Or this week’s National Wax Museum’s diabolical Dune reject.

The Bray celebration comes on the week that Sinéad’s death certificate was finally confirmed, the document noting that she died from ‘exacerbation of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and bronchial asthma together with low grade lower respiratory tract infection‘.

For Babette, making the 23-hour journey all the way from New Zealand for the gathering, it was “very disappointing” that nothing official had been organised for Sinéad’s anniversary, but “sense prevailed”.

“Bray is where the singer spent the happiest 15 years of her life,” says Marij, “and for all of us, Friday was one of the happiest days of our lives…”