Singer's husband quits Irish Mirror in fury

Sinead O'Connor's journalist husband has quit the Irish Mirror after the paper splashed on a court case involving the father of her child.

Nick Sommerlad, 28, has left the Mirror after the paper reported on a libel action brought against the Sunday Times by his wife's former boyfriend, Irish Times journalist John Waters.

A senior insider at the paper said Sommerlad had been angered by the coverage of the libel battle, which described Waters as his wife's "former lover".

The Mirror's Irish editor, John Kierans, described Sommerlad as "a very fine journalist and a decent fellow" and said it was a "tragedy" the fame of his wife had led him to leave the paper.

Waters won his libel action against the Sunday Times over an article suggesting he was a bad father to Roisin, his daughter by O'Connor.

In the article, Irish gossip columnist Terry Keane claimed Waters had used a speech about the Greek tragedy Medea at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin to launch an attack on women.

Most Irish papers splashed on the story but Sommerlad, who was a political writer on the paper, felt betrayed when the Mirror ran it on the front page, even though the paper refused to print a picture of Roisin that appeared in other papers.

O'Connor, 34, who has had several highly publicised affairs with journalists, married Sommerlad last August after a whirlwind romance.

He met the singer after he was posted by the Press Association to Dublin. He joined the Mirror last autumn.

It is understood he is now joining Ireland on Sunday - the broadsheet that has been relaunched as an Irish version of the Mail on Sunday.

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