Sinead O’Connor, the troubled Irish singer who died in Dublin, Ireland, at age 56, had deep respect for Jamaican music and pop culture.

In 2004, she recorded an album of cover songs with producers Sly and Robbie at Tuff Gong studios in Kingston. That album, Throw Down Your Arms, was released in the summer of 2005. It contains 12 interpretations of reggae standards, including the title track, originally done by Burning Spear.

O’Connor also recorded Spear’s Door Peep and Marcus Garvey; Junior Byles’ Curly Locks, Downpressor Man by Peter Tosh, Bob Marley’s War, and Buju Banton’s Untold Stories.

In addition to Sly (Dunbar) on drums and Robbie (Shakespeare) on bass, a number of top Jamaican musicians worked on Throw Down Your Arms. They included keyboardist Robbie Lyn, guitarist Mikey Chung, saxophonist Dean Fraser, and percussionist Uzziah “Sticky” Thompson.

O’Connor, who attended the launch at Liguanea Club in New Kingston, committed 10 per cent of its profits to “Rastafari elders” in Jamaica.

Dunbar remembers the artiste with a shaven-head, very focused during the recording sessions.

“She was very cool, very relaxed. She was very easy to work with and knew where she wanted the songs to go,” he told the Jamaica Observer on Wednesday.

Born in Dublin, O’Connor rose to prominence in the early 1990s with a cover of Prince’s Nothing Compares 2 U. At the time, she was considered the hot new act out of Ireland, following Elvis Costello and U2.

While O’Connor was lauded by the critics, she also gained notoriety due to a series of controversial incidents. In 1992, she tore up a photo of Pope John Paul II on the popular American skit show, Saturday Night Live and refused to perform in New Jersey because The Star Spangled Banner was played before her show.

O’Connor had been public about her mental illness, saying that she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. She posted a Facebook video in 2017 from a New Jersey motel where she had been living, saying that she was staying alive for the sake of others and that if it were up to her, she’d be “gone”.

When her teenage son, Shane, died by suicide last year, O’Connor tweeted there was “no point living without him” and she was soon hospitalised.

Her final tweet, sent July 17, read: “For all mothers of Suicided children,” and linked to a Tibetan compassion mantra.

O’Connor announced in 2018 that she had converted to Islam and would be adopting the name Shuhada’ Davitt, later Shuhada Sadaqat — although she continued to use Sinead O’Connor professionally.

“Her music was loved around the world and her talent was unmatched and beyond compare,” Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said in a statement on social media.

“I suppose I’ve got to say that music saved me,” she said in an interview with the Independent newspaper in 2013.

O’Connor announced she was retiring from music in 2003, but continued to record new material. Her most recent album I’m Not Bossy, I’m the Boss was released in 2014.

The singer married four times; her union to drug counsellor Barry Herridge, in 2011, lasted just 16 days. O’Connor had four children: Jake, with her husband John Reynolds; Roisin, with John Waters; Shane, with Donal Lunny; and Yeshua Bonadio, with Frank Bonadio.

— Additional reporting by