OVER 30 years ago, I was in Bewley's Café on Grafton Street in Dublin when I noticed Sinéad O'Connor sitting in a booth. She struck me as an ethereal beauty, very small and delicate and, most of all, shy.
She sat so far back in the booth that she'd the appearance of a wild animal caught in a trap. I'd the sense not to intrude on her privacy and walked back to where my friends were sitting. They were already aware of her presence, but I was pleased that everyone in the café that day seemed to have the same attitude as me, with nobody bothering her.
Sadly, for most of her life, she didn't find such understanding. The fragile looking woman I'd bumped into in Dublin turned out to have the heart of lion. Refusing to bend to perceived wisdom, she spent her life tilting at windmills supposedly braver souls avoided.
Read more: Why did Sinéad O'Connor rip up a picture of the Pope?
Her career and life seemed to unravel after her attack on the Catholic Church on US television. Appearing on Saturday Night Live in 1992, she famously tore up an image of then Pope John Paul II while singing an acapella rendition of Bob Marley's War – it was her protest against the unfolding scandal of child sexual abuse within the Church.
This was before the full magnitude of clerical abuse had become common knowledge and she faced a tsunami of criticism from both the public and media. While time proved her right and society wrong, the damage to her career was permanent.
Read more:Sinead O'Connor's voice ‘was Ireland right down to the ground'
Her failed relationships, mental health issues and the tragic suicide of her beloved son Shane 18 months ago were all fodder for the tabloid press. And, while her family have asked for privacy to grieve, I doubt they'll be afforded the consideration shown to Sinéad by ordinary people that day in a Dublin café.
What will prevail long after the controversies have been forgotten is a voice so hauntingly original and beautiful as to define a time and place. We will not see her like again. I hope she now rests in a peace she never found in life.
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I NOTICED a larger than usual reaction to my column last week, in which I criticised the growing dilapidation of Belfast and its limited facilities for tourists, especially on a Sunday. I found it striking how many individuals jumping to the city's defence were neither residents of Belfast nor even domiciled in Ireland – proving, I suppose, the old saying that absence makes the heart grow fonder.
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I SUSPECT the number of beachcombers along the Donegal coastline exploded last week after bails of cocaine weighing 60kg, with a street value of £3.5m, washed up on Ballyhiernan beach in Fanad and Tramore beach in Dunfanaghy.
An Garda Síochána have advised people to contact them if they find similar packages. I'd suggest they keep an eye out for any local fishermen who decide to turn their engines off and tow their boats into harbour by swimming, just to burn off a bit of excess energy.
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The release last Friday of two new movies – Barbie, depicting the Mattel toy franchise, and Oppenheimer, depicting the life of the creator of the nuclear bomb, J Robert Oppenheimer – must be one of the most unusual cinematic events in recent times.
My 15-year-old son and a group of schoolmates took on the task of Barbenheimer, a portmanteau to describe viewing the films back-to-back as a double bill. I admired their courage: that they felt comfortable enough to do so proves a degree of maturity I didn't have at their age, with the colour pink being Kryptonite to men of my vintage.
Collecting my son after his movie binge, it was amusing to see the very visible split in the two audiences. On one side, the pink tribe of mainly young girls: on the other, scruffily dressed nerds aged 16 to 60.
Oppenheimer's creation could have ended my life shortly after it began during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. Thankfully, nuclear war is now much less likely, but this week, we saw the island of Rhodes in flames and rivers of ice water flowing through the streets of Milan.
Was that a portent of the impending disaster of global warming? Not for those who remain in denial.
My interest in seeing the Oppenheimer movie disappeared when my son told me that it was three hours long. With my back injury, they'd need to stretcher me out if I sat that long.
