Sinead O’Connor’s cause of death revealed

A coroner has released the official manner in which the ‘Daughter of Ireland’ died suddenly, shocking the world into an outpouring of grief for the music icon.

Irish music legend Sinead O’Connor died of natural causes, according to British authorities.

The death of O’Conner shocked the world into an outpouring of grief for the “Daughter of Ireland”, who was found unresponsive in her London home last July.

John Thompson, a clerk of Southwark Coroners Court in London, revealed that the death had been ruled as natural.

“The coroner has therefore ceased their involvement in her death,” Thompson said in a statement.

A statement on the Coroner’s website previously said a decision into whether an inquest was needed would be decided after her cause of death was determined.

The late Nothing Compares 2 U singer was 56 years old when police were called to her Herne Hill penthouse in South London.

Sinead O'Connor and her son Shane.

She was pronounced dead at the scene with no medical cause of death given at the time. The Coroner did not offer additional details about the manner of her death following its autopsy.

Shortly before her death, O’Connor posted on social media that she had found a glimmer of happiness and had moved back to London and felt “very happy to be home”.

It was a new start for the singer after the death of her son Shane, 17, in January 2022, who took his own life after escaping hospital while on suicide watch.

A year on, in January, the mother of four was admitted to hospital after posting on social media that she had “decided to follow” his path.

O’Connor had been vocal about her mental health battles in the past, tweeting before her death that she had “been living as an undead night creature” since losing her son.

“He was the love of my life, the lamp of my soul.”

A tribute for singer Sinead O'Connor was unveiled on Bray Head, in Ireland. Picture: Supplied

Tthe coffin of Irish singer Sinead O'Connor, in the hearse during her funeral procession outside her former home in Bray. Picture: AFP

At a funeral procession through the streets of her hometown in Ireland, the coffin of Sinead O’Connor was swarmed by thousands of mourners.

Draped in blue, white and pink flowers, the procession rolled through the streets of her Bray after a private memorial service attended by family, friends, and her contemporaries like Bono and Bob Geldof, who was seen riding behind the cortege.

“Many, many times Sinead was full of a terrible loneliness and a terrible despair,” Geldof said ahead of the procession, which passed along the seafront 20 kilometres south of Dublin, where O’Connor lived for 15 years.

“We were talking right up to a couple of weeks ago. Some of her texts were laden with desperation and despair and some were ecstatically happy. She was like that.”

The Grammy award-winning singer, best known for her 1990 cover of “Nothing Compares 2 U”, rose to international fame in the nineties.

Sinead O'Connor in 2011 in New York City. Picture: Getty Images

Sinead O’Connor in 1988, as seen in the Nothing Compares music video. Picture: Andrew Catlin

O’Connor’s death prompted a surge of public sympathy around the world and in Ireland, where her willingness to criticise the Catholic Church, in particular, saw her vilified by some and praised as a trailblazer by others.

During her career O’Connor revealed she had been abused by her mother as a child.

In 1992 she protested the abuse of children by the church, tearing up a picture of Pope John Paul II while performing on the US television program Saturday Night Live.

At the time of her death, O’Connor was completing a new album and planning a tour, according to her agents, who said she was also working on a movie based on her autobiography, Rememberings.

Originally published as Sinead O’Connor’s cause of death revealed