Kiera Dignam, daughter of the late Aslan frontman Christy Dignam, has said she is still "very numb" following the death of her father last month, but is determined to carry on his legacy through her own music.
Speaking on RTÉ Radio 1's Today With Claire Byrne, Dignam said: "I'm still very numb, which is probably why I'm able to sit here today."
"I think anybody who's lost somebody knows it can hit you straight away or it can hit you after a couple of months - I'm still in the numb stage.
"So I'm hoping to cling on to that for dear life as long as I possibly can, and distract myself and work hard and just try and be a little bit productive while I'm in this headspace."
She said that her father went to the hospital a year ago this week: "That's when things got really serious for us and really tough.
"It was back and forth to the hospital twice or three times a day. And then when we got him home finally in November, we were kind of sent home with a timeframe – which he outlived like he always did, so when it finally happened, it was very, very quick."
Dignam paid tribute to the palliative care that her father received during his final months, saying that the carers and nurses are a "special type of people. It makes you believe in angels, it really does."
She said that the outpouring of support after her father's death surprised her, and while initially, she had a preference for a small and private family funeral, she soon changed her mind when she saw that fans wanted an outlet for their own grief.
She said: "I've always shared my dad my whole life with the public and I didn't always like that.
"I just felt that in the lead-up to his death... I wanted that [the funeral] to be a private thing... I wanted it to be for us, I didn't want to share that day.
"[But] when I was speaking to the undertaker who helped us, and he was saying, ‘Kiera, you have no idea what's going on outside this house. People need something. People want something.'"
Dignam recalled: "I slept on it. I rang him back and I said, 'You know what, you're right.'
"I think it was probably a little bit selfish of me to want to have that day just for us because he did belong to everybody else as well in a way - that aspect of him, the 'Christy' aspect of him.
"He was 'Dad' to me, and Christopher to my mam, and 'Grandad', but I think it was important to give people that - to let people grieve and let fans be together."
She reflected: "And in the long run, I actually would have regretted missing that because it was amazing, and it was amazing support for us."
She added: "He deserved to be celebrated. He had enough battles through his life and the biggest battle he had was in the last ten years."
Dignam said her father had "no idea" how much he meant to people.
She also told Byrne that she is now fully throwing herself into her own music career, and was working on an album just before the Covid-19 pandemic began.
Earlier this year, she planned a headline gig at Dublin's famous music venue, Whelan's, but sadly her father's health deteriorated just days before the gig, and the concert did not go ahead.
The gig has now moved to a bigger venue, Opium Live, and will take place on 27 December, with Dignam saying: "Any Aslan fans will know that this is a significant date - that was always the Vicar St date, or the Point.
"It's something that I thought would be nice for my family."
Dignam says that singing is a form of therapy for her. "I've been working on this since I was 12. I could go into a hole and say, 'No, I don't want to see people, I don't want to sing anymore' but he wouldn't want that.
"Like my Dad said in his last interview, he wanted his legacy to live on through me.... now, I'm not trying by any means to fill his shoes - I have my own shoes.
"I'm not trying to be Christy Dignam. There is only one Christy Dignam and nobody can replace him."
