Musicians and members of Aotearoa's Irish community say Sinéad O'Connor's music will be playing all over the world today.
Family of the Nothing Compares 2 U singer broke the news of her death on Wednesday.
Wellington Irish Society president Patricia Given said she first heard O'Connor's music while studying in the early nineties.
"When she broke onto our screens and radios with Nothing Compares 2 U the impact that had on young Irish women was like nothing else. With her shaved head and big beautiful eyes, it stopped everybody in their tracks," Given said.
Given said the singer's open and often controversial stance on spiritualism, activism and mental health was ahead of its time.
"She was very vocal and just spoke openly about her situation and her mental health issues as well. She was a very brave woman," Given said.
Wellington based Irish singer songwriter Andy Kerr said O'Connor was the voice of his generation and the first high profile Irish person to stand up to the Catholic Church.
He said he would never forget the moment the singer tore up a picture of the Pope on US television. O'Connor discussed the 1992 incident on CBC in 2010.
"She embodied a generation that had had enough of turning a blind eye to all that was rotten with the church and society in Ireland at that time. She paved the way for many people to stand up and say 'enough of this shit'," Kerr said.
He said her support of the refugee community in Ireland, and songs that highlighted issues such as female genital mutilation and police brutality towards black men meant she would always be admired as a voice for the marginalised.
Her openness about her own mental health struggles encouraged people around her to seek help for themselves, he said.
"She was a trigger for a lot of people just standing up and saying 'I need help' and also saying 'this issue isn't right and needs to be talked about. We need to have conversations about different things'," Kerr said.
New Zealand based Irish musician Gerry Paul met Sinéad O'Connor at the beginning of his career while working as a teaboy in a Dublin recording studio. He was struck by her involved, personable manner.
Sinéad O'Connor at a TV appearance on 16 March 1990. Photo: DPA Picture-Alliance via AFP
"She connected with you straight away [and] found the little commonalities. You can imagine being a young fella in her presence was quite intimidating but she had a way of making you feel very relaxed and important. It was very sincere and lovely," Paul said.
Paul said he continued to be amazed by the diversity and power of her music all the way through her more than 30-year career. Regardless of which style she was inhabiting you could always hear she was singing from the heart, he said.
"She had one of those voices that could go from pop to trad to rock to reggae. There's not many singers who can cover that amount of territory and do it like they were born to sing that genre."
O'Connor performed at a packed Bowl of Brooklands, New Plymouth as a part of the 2015 Womad festival.
Photos show O'Connor smiling broadly clad in a priest's clerical collar, crucifix and dark sunglasses.
The singer was reduced to fits of laughter as a duck in the venue's stage-side pond quacks as if in response to the lyric 'like a bird without a song,' during her performance of break-through hit Nothing Compares 2 U.
"I'm sorry everybody, the duck took over. It was too funny," she quipped, unable to carry on with the song.
