Sinead O'Connor Rails Against Ireland After Teen Son's Death

Singer posts that Shane O'Connor was on suicide watch
By Bob Cronin,  Newser Staff
Posted Jan 8, 2022 4:20 PM CST
Updated Jan 10, 2022 12:11 AM CST
Sinead O'Connor's Missing Son Dies at 17
Sinead O'Connor performs in Budapest in 2019.   (Marton Monus/MTI via AP, File)

Update: In a lengthy Twitter thread Sunday, Sinead O'Connor railed against Ireland's healthcare system and its child and family agency Tusla, blaming them for the death of her teenage son, the Guardian reports. "Guess where my son learned to make the noose that hung him? He tried a week ago and I asked him… he told me he’d studied it on the computer IN THE KIDS’S psych hospital at Linndara," she wrote in one tweet. "While he was being treated there for psychoses." Claiming other children have died in the agency's care, she promised to take action. "A month ago Shane was brought to CAMHS after vanishing leaving suicide notes including detailed funeral plans. They discharged him," she wrote. In another tweet, she took some of the blame herself, writing, "we all failed him." Our original story from Saturday follows:

Calling him "the lamp of my soul," Sinéad O'Connor has paid tribute to her 17-year-old son, Shane, who died after being reported missing earlier this week. "My beautiful son, Nevi'im Nesta Ali Shane O'Connor, the very light of my life, decided to end his earthly struggle today and is now with God," the singer tweeted. "May he rest in peace and may no one follow his example." Irish police said Thursday that he had been seen last in Dublin, CNN reports. His mother had posted messages asking him to go to police. "Please don't harm yourself. Go to the Gardai and let's get you to hospital," O'Connor wrote.

In tweets Saturday on an unverified account, O'Connor expressed anger that her son had died in the care of the state, per People. She also asked how a hospital had failed to keep him safe though he had "made two severe suicide attempts" the week before. O'Connor, 55, said Shane was on suicide watch at the hospital. Shane O'Connor was son of musician Dónal Lunny and the third of the singer's four children. "Please be at peace," O'Connor told her son in a post. (More Sinead O'Connor stories.)

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