There is a Bluetooth jukebox on the grave

A Bluetooth jukebox, with Irish flags on the face of it, has been set into a new marble memorial at Shiregreen Cemetery in Sheffield. There are gates in front of the figures. The stone is for Michael Collins, who died in December 2024, aged 51.

The BBC was at the cemetery on Friday. A near life-size figure of Michael stands between carvings that appear to represent Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary. A few yards away is a similarly large white memorial for his brother Willy.

National World puts the new memorial at thirty tonnes. It describes a marble bench lettered Sheffield Collins Brothers, and a jukebox that reads Legend Michael Collins. A loved one called him the true blue of Sheffield.

Michael's son told the BBC the paperwork was already done.

"Everything has been approved for this headstone with the council itself. Everything has been done by the book."

"I just want my father to rest in peace."

Sheffield City Council says the monument was erected before final approval was given. Officials had been talking to the memorial mason, and had been prepared to consider a large design. Then the stone went up. The council says a final drawing was not submitted, and that neither formal approval nor payment followed. It also says the memorial as built includes elements that were not part of the design previously discussed.

The mason has since told the council that the family wants to regularise the situation. The authority is seeking a retrospective application for the memorial as it stands. No decision has been made. Approval, it said, cannot be guaranteed.

In Sheffield's publicly run cemeteries you do not need planning permission for a grave memorial. You do need written approval from Bereavement Services before the work is carried out. Shiregreen is one of sixteen cemeteries the council runs.

Willy's stone appeared in March 2022. It has a man in a boxing stance, and a solar-powered jukebox. The word King is in gold on the front. William Collins was born in Athlone, in County Westmeath. He died in Majorca on 7 July 2020, aged 49. He was a father of nine. At the time the council said it had approved a memorial, and that the one which appeared was not the one on the drawing. Four years on, it is still working through the processes.

People who were tending other graves on Friday did not agree with one another. One man told the BBC the new memorial was too big. If they keep it simple, he said, it is much better. A woman looking at the same plot said it looked very nice. If they have paid for the plot, she did not see the problem.