Russell Crowe recalls chance encounter with Sinéad O'Connor outside a pub in Ireland and their impromptu 'conversation without fences' one night last year

• Irish singer Sinéad O'Connor is dead at 56, her family said Wednesday.
• Actor Russell Crowe commemorated O'Connor with a touching Twitter thread following news of her death.

Actor Russell Crowe commemorated Irish singer Sinéad O'Connor in a touching Twitter thread on Wednesday evening, recalling a chance encounter he had with the singer outside a pub in Ireland last year.

In a statement to RTE on Wednesday, O'Connor's family said the pop singer had died, adding that her friends and family were "devastated" by the loss.

She was 56 years old.

Crowe, who was born in New Zealand and grew up in Australia, said he was working in Ireland last year, having a pint with some new friends outside a pub in Dalkey when a woman walked by.

"Puffy parker zipped to the nape and her bowed head covered in a scarf," Crowe wrote of O'Connor.

One of Crowe's new friends "muttered an exclamation," jumped up and pursued the woman, he said. Crowe said he watched as his friend and the woman embraced before he was beckoned over.

"There under streetlights with mist on my breath, I met Sinéad. She looked in my eyes, and uttered with disarming softness, 'oh, it's you Russell,'" Crowe wrote.

The actor said O'Connor then joined him and his friends at a table as they engaged in a "conversation without fences," that included discussions about a recent Dublin heatwave, local and American politics, the ongoing fight for indigenous recognition, her memories of New Zealand, faith, music, movies, and her brother.

"I had the opportunity to tell her she was a hero of mine," Crowe wrote.

"When her second cup was taking on the night air, she rose, embraced us all and strode away into the fog-dimmed streetlights," he added. "We sat there the four of us and variously expressed the same thing. What an amazing woman."