I hoped, when the message first came through on my phone, that it wasn’t true. Surely it would turn out to have been a wild rumour – some bizarre notion that had taken hold in some obscure corner of the internet. Sinéad O’Connor wasn’t really gone; she couldn’t be.
The shock is still sinking in.
It is hard to describe just how much Sinéad meant to those of us in Ireland old enough to remember the years-long fallout of her infamous “Fight the real enemy” gesture. Few of us will ever forget how she spoke about child abuse within the Church long before it was considered remotely acceptable to do so; how she was pilloried for her words at the time, yet turned out to be utterly, heartbreakingly correct.
She was a woman of unparalleled, uncompromising integrity that very few people actually possess. A bringer of searing truth – seldom harsher than when she turned that light of truth upon herself.
She was mocked and derided by many, never hiding her mental and physical struggles. Her life was troubled, yes, but in every twist and turn, it was easy to see a warrior soul struggling to express a deeply held conviction, as well as she could at any given time. She was unconcerned about how she might be perceived, unabashed in her proclamations. This alone made her stand out in a world consumed by artifice.
The loss of her son Shane at the start of last year was perhaps the most bitter blow of her life. A mother grieving a child: can there be any greater loss?
I am sorry, dear soul, that the world was too cruel for your light to carry on. May you find the peace that eluded you in life. May you, in some small way, gain a sense of just how deeply you were loved.
Image: Brian Ledgard/Flickr