In October 1996 I found myself in a seminar group with Sinéad O’Connor. My name then was O’Neill and the alphabet had lumped us together long before any other identity group had a chance to.
I was looking forward to hearing what she had to contribute and not at all dreaming about shaving my head, becoming her best friend and meeting Prince, but I never saw her again after that first week. Like so many times before and since, the ever-restless heart changed route.
I never kept up with her work, but from time to time I would read about something shocking she had said or done. She frequently spoke out on issues of rights, racism, child abuse, religion and feminism, and she was clearly a deeply damaged, troubled person desperately seeking stability and truth. If it was Galilee circa 31AD she would have recognised truth and found the rest that she so rightly longed for. But she was unable to recognise that which is “the same yesterday, today and forever” in the short span of time between 8 December 1966 and 26 July 2023.
