Sinead O'Connor says that Irish people's attitudes to sex has led to her creating an unusual new dating rule for herself.

"You're not allowed to talk about sex in Ireland," said the singer, who has been married four times.

"The last four boyfriends I've had, their mothers have refused to meet me because I wrote articles about sex.

"Now I have a rule - I don't go out with anyone whose mother isn't dead."

O'Connor - who split from her last husband, Irish drugs counsellor Barry Herridge, last year - is also planning to move with her children, Jake, 24, Roisin, 16, Shane, eight and Yeshua, six, from Ireland to London.

"There's nothing to do but drink," she said. "And I don't drink. Why don't they sell the whole thing to Australia?"

The 46-year-old singer also said that her children are a "stabilising influence" on her and helped her to curb her hard-partying ways.

She added in an interview with the Daily Mirror newspaper: "[Motherhood] certainly was a stabilising influence.

"I'm the type of rock 'n' roll chick that would have enjoyed staying up all night being under every drug under the sun. It was good I was a mother early so I couldn't be f****d up myself."