As Ireland prepared to bid farewell to singer and songwriter Sinéad O’Connor on Tuesday, a special message appeared in the hills outside her former home.
A Dublin-based creative agency laid out gigantic, 30-foot letters in recycled plastic to spell out “EIRE (Heart) SINÉAD” near Bray, a seaside town south of Dublin.
“So much has been said about Sinéad since her recent passing, I’m not sure what is left to say,” Richard Seabrooke, executive creative director of The Tenth Man, the agency responsible for the display, told Sky News. “We just wanted to take the opportunity to mark the moment with a bold statement that symbolizes what she meant to this little country of ours.”
Here’s the footage of the installation, posted to YouTube by The Tenth Man:
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To create the massive “EIRE LOVES SINÉAD” message, The Tenth Man used a unique World War II artifact: The word “EIRE,” which is Irish for “Ireland,” is spelled with white stones and was a sign to WWII pilots that they were passing over the country.
The “EIRE” was re-discovered in 2018 after a wildfire burned the surrounding foliage. The Tenth Man added the heart and “SINÉAD” in 30-foot-long letters.
It’s a fitting tribute to the fiercely political O’Connor — a relic of war, repurposed as an expression of love.
O’Connor’s family had invited the public to join a funeral procession, which attracted thousands as it made its way through Bray Tuesday morning. Family members finished the march with a private burial.
“Sinéad loved living in Bray and the people in it,” the family said in a statement, The Irish Times reported. “With this procession, her family would like to acknowledge the outpouring of love for her from the people of County Wicklow and beyond, since she left last week, to go to another place.”
O’Connor — who also went by the name Shuhada’ Sadaqat after converting to Islam in 2018 — was found dead in her apartment by London police on July 26. Her cause of death hasn’t yet been determined, but authorities said it didn’t appear suspicious. She’d only lived in London for a short time and had been mourning the 2022 loss of her teenage son.
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