Nothing can ever compare to you, Sinead O’ Connor

Irish singer-songwriter Sinéad O'Connor who passed away earlier this week. Photo credit: Bryan Ledgard via Wikimedia Commons

“Hey, Melanie. The two of us should go to Lisdoonvarna. What do you think?” 

Staring at the text from Sinead O’ Connor, I gave a little giggle. Sinead never ceased to surprise but suggesting that the two of us should go to the famous matchmaking festival in Ireland was unexpected.

“You’re not serious, are you?”, I texted back.

“Dead serious,” she responded. 

“Sinead, I can’t imagine anything more fun than taking a road trip with you, but how on earth can the two of us go to Lisdoonvarna without ending on the front of every newspaper in Ireland?” I wanted to know. 

My beloved partner, Gerry Ryan - a famous radio and TV personality in Ireland - had died twenty months earlier and the unprecedented media interest that followed made it difficult for me to go anywhere in Ireland without being recognized. 

Sinead, however, couldn’t care less. In typical Sinead style, she responded that the only thing that would upset her, was if a man told the press that she wasn’t good in bed. “Come on, let’s go get us some hairy Irish fellas” she insisted. 

To say that Sinead was a global super star would be an understatement. Yet, she never got caught in the trappings of stardom. She remained humble and self-deprecating. Above all, she remained compassionate and caring. 

After Gerry’s death, even though we had never met, she reached out to me several times, encouraging me to remain strong amidst the hurricane of media stories. “Remember, today’s newspapers will line the cat litter tray tomorrow,” she would say. “Let them write what they want. Who cares?”

I’m sure Sinead did care what people said about her (who doesn’t), but it never stopped her from living her truth fearlessly.

It was this courage as much as her music which captured the hearts of millions around the world and why I admired her so much. 

When radio executives asked her to change her look to be “more conventionally beautiful”, she shaved her head.  Despite living in Catholic Ireland, she tore up a picture of the Pope during an appearance on Sunday Night Life, in protest of the abuse in the Catholic Church. She held strong political views and eventually converted to Islam. 

I’m sure she knew the uproar her actions would cause, yet she used the global platform she inhabited to raise issues that were important to her and impacted on the lives of people around the globe. 

Sadly, the world can be a harsh and cruel place for a beautiful and fragile soul like Sinead’s.  Her early life was difficult and after being caught shoplifting, she was put into a Catholic institutional school. It was clearly a very traumatic experience for her, but it was also during this time that a nun gave her (and the world) the biggest gift – her first guitar. Sinead often said that given circumstances she had only two options: music or jail. 

Later she would openly speak about her lifelong mental health challenges. Being a public figure, her breakdowns often played out on social media or in the mainstream press, which always struck me as particularly cruel.   

There is a recording of very young Sinead performing: “Thank you for hearing me”. In this live recording she almost whispers what sounds more like a lament: “Thank you for hearing me, thank you for loving me, thank you for holding me.”

Perhaps this was all she really wanted – and never got – in life. 

Yet, time and time again she bravely fought her way back to balance…

Then 18 months ago, her beloved son Shane died. In the days after his disappearance from a hospital where he was on suicide watch, Sinead pleaded repeatedly with him through social media to return to her safely. It was not to be. His body was found a few miles from her home. 

In a life of continuous challenges, this seemed to break Sinead.  In her final social media posting she wrote: “Been living as undead night creature since. He was the love of my life, the lamp of my soul.” 

Now her lamp has gone dark. 

Sinead and I never did get to Lisdoonvarna together. I didn’t have the courage, so she went on her own – defiant, as always, of a world that wanted to prescribe to her how to behave. 

May you finally rest in peace, Sinead. The world will forever be a poorer place without your brilliance, because I know for sure that nothing can ever compare to you.