In the end, it was a very Sinéad O'Connor affair. The music of Bob Marley boomed from a PA atop a Hippy meets Mod Volkswagen campervan bedecked with Pride and Rastafarian flags as fans lining the seafront in Bray threw flowers onto the passing hearse.
Sinéad had brought her own top-ranking sound system to the town she lived and loved so well for 15 years, but it was the echo of grateful applause and cheers that reverberated down Strand Road on Tuesday morning.
She wasn't waiting in vain for our love.
Sure, there was sadness in the sea air. It was a solemn affair - some remarked upon the eerie silence before the cortege came to a stop at her former home - but Sinéad’s final journey was also a celebration of a life well lived and to its very fullest.
Under the shadow of Bray Head, the local funfair was being dismantled and crowds had begun gathering at dawn. By the time the funeral cortege began to snake down seafront of the Wicklow town, thousands were ready to pay their respects.
There was dancing in the street to Mandinka and tears for Nothing Compares 2 U. But there were also smiles, laughter, candles, and poems as the sun shone down on the seaside town.
President Michael D Higgins and his wife Sabina, and Taoiseach Leo Varadkar had attended an earlier private funeral service and Bob Geldof, a man who Sinéad out-Geldofed, Liam Ó Maonlaí of The Hothouse Flowers and Bono were among the mourners.
However, Tuesday was also a day for Bray to say goodbye to its most famous citizen. A statement from the O'Connor family at the weekend said: "Sinéad loved living in Bray and the people in it.
"With this procession, her family would like to acknowledge the outpouring of love for her from the people of Co Wicklow and beyond, since she left last week to go to another place."
Bray had been home to the late singer between 2007 and 2021 and it had become a refuge for her, a place to get her head together away from the clamour and demands of the music industry.
The local people were protective of their famous neighbour and on Tuesday they spoke of how the music star in their midst was a very down-to-earth and friendly woman who wanted to live a quiet life.
They also recalled her acts of random kindness. Local musician Tom Dalton spoke about the evening Sinéad turned up at an acoustic night in Jim Doyle’s pub one Wednesday back in 2019. Rocking up with a big white guitar (she took lessons from a local teacher), she joined in on an impromptu rendition of Amazing Grace. Mr Dalton said he didn’t recognise her at first but when she started singing, he knew straight away.
When the cortege paused outside Sinéad’s former home, a pretty seafront house called Montebello with quoin stones painted in Rasta colours, her possibly semi-legendary pink chair had been placed outside the pink-framed conservatory. It was from here that she watched the world pass by.
Bob Marley & The Wailers’ Natural Mystic gave way to her biggest hit Nothing Compares 2 U, and fans and well-wishers joined in. It wasn’t the first time she’d received a standing ovation.
Just as the procession made it to the last stage of Sinéad’s final journey and turned off Strand Road at 12.30pm, 181 radio stations around Ireland played the song again, a national jukebox for a rebel, a star and a woman who was truly loved.
Read more:
Sinéad O'Connor: 10 major moments of a remarkable life
Sinéad: Universal Mother Éire
Sinéad O'Connor's music makes dramatic return to Irish charts
Crowds line Bray seafront for 'daughter of Ireland' Sinéad O'Connor
