Hannigan, an art history student and sometime theatre actress who left Trinity College to make music with the artist formerly known as Dodi Ma, was the secret weapon on the phenomenally successful O album, her haunting vocals adding depth to Rice's songs. And on this year's 9, Hannigan provided the lead vocal to the first single '9 Crimes'. In fact, most of Rice's tracks are aching, personal and exposed, and the vocal duel between Hannigan and Rice often lent an almost uncomfortable listening quality, such was its apparent realness.

The end of their relationship followed a tumultuous time on tour and the abrupt statement came after several rows while Rice, Hannigan and the rest of the touring band played gigs in Germany. Rice's camp are notoriously private and consistently refuse interview requests, even when there's a record to promote. In spite of this lack of interaction, Damien Rice will headline the acoustic stage at the Glastonbury festival this year. Hannigan will, of course, not be present.

Her departure creates a vacuum filled by scrambling record labels and artist managers keen to sign up the most unique Irish vocalists of the past decade. She has long been respected in industry circles as an extremely competent vocalist but the protective hold of Rice has up until now prevented Hannigan from striking out on her own.

Probably much to his chagrin, Hannigan will now step into the spotlight.

Hannigan was more than Rice's muse. Her vocals far outdid his and, recently, she's been coming into her own. Her band, The Daisy Okell Quartet, didn't release any material but reports were good. And last year, when Rice and Hannigan's 'creative partnership' was fading and the spark had gone, Rice perhaps inadvertently pushed her further to the fore. When curating his own stage at the Electric Picnic festival in Stradbally, Co Laois, Hannigan got in on the act with a solo set.

The sound was bad and the collective of musicians, including Hannigan, were maybe too hippy dippy (even for the hemp-clad Picnic crowd that end of the field). Along with recordings with Mic Christopher and The Frames, Hannigan graduated to becoming a prominent member of The Cake Sale . . . a collective of musicians including members of Snow Patrol, Bell X1 and The Frames who came together to record a rather cheesy record in aid of Oxfam Ireland. Hannigan shone on the record, her voice unleashed from the moodiness of Rice's recordings onto a brighter platform.

Hotpress reported that Hannigan will go on to form a new band . . . 'The Jilted' . . . with Iain Archer (the sometime writing partner of Snow Patrol's Gary Lightbody), Bell X1 and a couple of others, although maybe that's some kind of anti-Rice joke.

(Rice was of course the lead singer in Juniper until he upped sticks to Tuscany, leaving the band's drummer to take up vocals and form Bell X1. ) The caption on Hannigan's fan MySpace account (there are at least two of them) now reads "did i say that i loathe you?" a seemingly (and stop me if I'm reading too much into this) bitter reference to her vocal harmony on 'The Blower's Daughter' with Rice, a song that took over the Jude Law/Julia Roberts/Natalie Portman/Clive Owen flick Closer.

Close relationships in bands are always complicated and often catestrophic but such a release will probably be creatively cathartic for Hannigan. Sometimes you can make it on your own.