A woman who flew half way across the world to say farewell to Sinead O’Connor has described a moment she will remember for the rest of her life.
Karnamrita Dasi, 49, a singer from San Francisco, booked a flight to Ireland as soon as she heard the news of the Irish performer’s death.
She visited tributes to O’Connor around Dublin and her former Irish home in the Co Wicklow town of Bray before taking part in the gathering for the funeral procession on Tuesday, singing her hits and sharing colourful roses with other well-wishers to throw on the hearse.
“The first time I heard it (news of O’Connor’s death), I didn’t believe it and I knew I had to be with people who felt as powerfully as I did about how much of an impact she made,” she told the PA news agency.
“It feels these days like people say rest in peace on social media, and that’s the end of someone’s remembrance. I wanted to be here to offer more than that because she gave so much to me as a young girl and my generation.”
She said she knew if she did not come to Ireland she would regret it for the rest of her life.
“I went on the internet and there was an air ticket the next day for 184 dollars. I don’t know anybody here, I had nowhere to stay but I knew everything would work out,” she said.
“I have been here at her house almost every afternoon, and I’ve been to some of the tributes around the city.”
She described the atmosphere in Bray for the funeral procession as “magical”.
“The minute I got here, they were playing her music and thousands of people were singing, then when the music stopped, all these little groups started their own and it just felt like we lived some of her words, we lived her words so powerfully,” she said.
“When she drove by, to hear the song of A Natural Mystic in reggae playing for her, something is very aligned in the way that I see her as a natural mystic.
“I never heard a song from a mother as well as when she became a mother and voiced how it felt, when she was a punk she voiced for those for us who needed to roar, when she decided to explore spirituality – I just feel like I grew with her as she grew and explored different parts of my life through her music.
“There was no way I wasn’t going to be a part of the last part of her life.”
