Ed Sheeran’s grandmother has died.
The singer, 32, has suffered another personal blow after a difficult year as his beloved Irish grandmother Anne Mary Sheeran née Mulligan, also known as Nancy, passed away last Tuesday.
Mulligan, who inspired Sheeran’s 2017 song Nancy Mulligan, died peacefully at Castle Gardens Nursing Home in Enniscorthy, and will be laid to rest on Wednesday in St Patrick’s Church, Monaseed, Gorey.
An obituary described Mulligan as a “beloved wife of the late Bill and loving mother of Jim, Bill, Peter, Chris, John, MaryAnne, Bridget and the late Sally and sister of the late Thomas, Jim, May and Peggy”.
Mulligan leaves behind eight children and 23 grandchildren.
Sheeran recalled in the song Nancy Mulligan the story of how his grandmother, a Catholic from the Republic of Ireland, met his late grandfather William Sheeran, a Protestant from Belfast, and fell in love during the Second World War.
“They got engaged and no one turned up at their wedding,” Sheeran previously said.
“He stole all the gold teeth in his dental surgery and melted them down into a wedding ring, and they wore borrowed clothes to get married, and just basically have this kind of Romeo and Juliet romance, which is like the most romantic thing.
“So, I thought I’d write a song about it and make it a jig.”
Sheeran’s grandmother was seen in a video clip having her first listen of the song in 2017.
She told RTE News at the time: “I’ll never think of [Sheeran] as being famous, I have to say. He’s exactly the same as he always is when he visits.
“And it’s very rare because he’s always working and when you think he was working from the age of 14, you’d have to feel sorry for him, you know he’s so tired but he loved it.”
Sheeran also wrote about his terminally ill maternal grandmother, whom he spent much time with in her final months, in the 2017 song Supermarket Flowers.
‘When [my grandmother] passed away I wrote a song called Supermarket Flowers about the situation. The verse lyrics are about packing up her room at that hospital,” Sheeran said.
“Me and my family became very close to the nurses who worked there and my mum is still in touch with them now. I see them from time to time when I’m in the area and it’s like meeting old friends.”
