Ryan Tubridy made an emotional gesture to remember Ashling Murphy and Sinead O'Connor's son Shane after a chat with the singer at the weekend.
School teacher Ashling, 23, was laid to rest this morning, six days after her brutal murder last Wednesday.
Whilst hundreds of mourners gathered for her funeral mass at St Brigid's Church in Mountbolus, Co. Offaly at 11am, thousands watched from a live stream from their homes as the nation united in mourning.
And speaking on his radio show an hour before the heartbreaking ceremony, Ryan Tubridy paid a special tribute to Ashling, as well as remembering Shane O’Connor, the late son of Sinead O’Connor and Donal Lunny, who was laid to rest at the weekend.
Ending his RTE Radio 1 show on a sombre note to reflect the tragic deaths, Ryan said: “Before we say goodbye, I do want to mention Ashling Murphy…
“We mentioned Ashling on the Late Late Show of course, and we mentioned Sinead O’Connor and Donal Lunny’s son Shane, who had also passed away and the musicians wanted to mark that desperate story also.”
Shane, 17 tragically passed away on Friday, January 7.
Singer Sinead O’Connor and musician Donal Lunny paid a tearful farewell to their son during memorial services for him over the weekend.
Ryan revealed he had spoken to his heartbroken mother Sinead on Saturday, and told of a song the singer asked him to listen to, that she had written for her late son in recent years.
The Late Late Show host said he wanted to finish his show on Tuesday morning with the emotional tune, ‘Horse on the Highway’ to pay tribute to both Shane, and Ashling Murphy, and their grieving family and friends.
He told: “I had the occasion to speak to Sinead at some length on Saturday and she is doing as well as can be possible under the circumstances.
“But she very thoughtfully sent a song to us here last night - or in the early hours of this morning that she wrote about her son about two and half years ago. And she said you can play it if you like.
“It’s nice and it’s a tough edit as she calls it and it is called Horse on the highway.
“And I listened to it this morning and it is actually a very beautiful song and Sinead is grieving, the Murphy family are grieving today and the whole country is grieving today.
“And I just felt that this song, as Sinead’s suggestion would be quite a song to play as we say goodbye to you today… on this day of days.
“Because it is a song about grief and the song about the loss of a child gone too soon.”
