Sinead O’Connor has confirmed that she is due to have a hysterectomy.

The singer has been having a torrid time recently with a variety of health-related difficulties emerging in her family. She recently cancelled all live appearances for the foreseeable future because her son had been diagnosed with a 'life-threatening medical condition'.

“It is the type of condition my child will definitely survive,” she said at the time, "if correct care is taken and is supervised by myself. Otherwise there is no guarantee. That is the plain truth.”

However, her own health has now become the immediate focus of Sinead’s concern, with the revelation on her Facebook page that she is due to have a hysterectomy during the coming week.

“Hysterectomy Wednesday,” the singer wrote. “Ovaries and uterus. My daughter says my vagina 'will be like a famine road’.”

There has been an outpouring of sympathy for Sinéad, especially among women who have themselves had the operation. However, Sinéad herself has gone quiet since posting the news, which has now been made unavailable online.

Sinéad is one of Ireland’s most important artists of the past thirty years. Her biggest success, since the release of her debut album The Lion and The Cobra, in 1987, came with her cover of Prince’s ‘Nothing Compares 2 U’, which was a No.1 single all over the world in 1990. The album from which the single was taken, I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got also went to No.1 all over the world and earned double platinum status in the US and the UK, as well as going five times platinum in Canada.

But she has enjoyed a hugely successful career artistically since, culminating in the acclaimed I’m Not Bossy, I’m The Boss album released in 2014, which went to No.1 in Ireland and saw her breach the US Hot 100 for the first time since her Faith and Courage album in 2000.