She was always devastatingly beautiful and terrifyingly provocative, a combination that some found hard to deal with. I had known her on and off since the 80s, relished a friendship with her that thankfully never went offside. It was beautiful to sit there for a while, while tourists ambled by, none of them having any idea who she was. Head covered in an untidy headscarf, sitting on a bench in her nightgown. Anyway, the sound was echoing from my phone, and I turned a corner and there she was, sitting in the garden of the small pink bungalow she had rented. She told me record companies wouldn’t be interested in funding a video for her, which I found odd, sad, or maybe just reflected how out of date I was. The song was, or seemed to be, about how any cry of pain, for help, for understanding, can be so easily misinterpreted.
I told Sinéad when she first played it that if she wanted to make a video, I would be immediately available. It was one of the most extraordinary uses of her searing voice and her blazing lyrical talent. I was walking with my granddaughter towards Dalkey, and played her a track Sinéad had just sent me, called No Veteran Dies Alone. Ar dheis Dé go raibh a h-anam dílis (May her faithful soul be at the right hand of God). Before we turn her into a rock’n’roll saint and lift her image even further from the real, let’s check in with each other and lift the sadness where we can. Sinéad’s grief at the loss of her son was hard to witness and her loss will spark difficulties in many people. She was very beautiful and very wild, and she trembled with the truths she had to tell. Somewhere in there, beyond the huge talent and huge difficulty, beyond public adoration and vilification, the ardent and anguished connection she felt with her fans, was the hope that her great heart and searching wit would bring her through. All these people joined in the battle for Sinéad’s mental health and worked for the protection and wellbeing of her children, and all of them, including Sinéad, contended with the distorting power that fame brought to her life.
So when the world mourns an iconic talent and a great star, people in Dublin think about those caught up in her astonishing life story who are now bereaved. Sinéad O’Connor was a daughter, a mother and a sister, she made a family that brought many people into its extended web of care, one that included the fathers of her four adored children.
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