Ryan Tubridy has revealed Sinéad O’Connor offered him “safe haven” amid the ongoing RTÉ scandal.
The legendary musician, who shot to fame in the 90s for her cover of Prince’s Nothing Compares 2 U, sadly passed away on July 26 at the age of 56.
Writing in The Irish Times, the former Late Late Show host recalled: “Two weeks ago, I was in Clifden escaping from reality when my phone rang. It was Sinéad – ‘Jesus man, what the f**k is going on?’ – and so began a very long chat about life and the universe.”
“She told me that sometimes bad situations were really just visits from ‘God in a hoodie’ whereby you think you’re being mugged but there’s a higher purpose – beautifully Sinéad!”
“I won’t go into more detail but she understood darkness, she understood loyalty, she understood family and she understood love.”
“She offered me her spare room in the new flat if I needed a safe haven, but more importantly she offered kindness.”
“There was always a pre-show smoke around the side of the building, an innocuous spot that Late Late Show house band MD Jim Sheridan and I renamed The Sinéad O’Connor Suite (she loved that).”
“Then there was the reverence for her among the other guests and crew, who always knew that a Sinéad night was a special one,” Ryan continued.
“With every appearance on the Late Late, our unlikely friendship grew. Thoughtful text messages, bawdy WhatsApp memes and occasional phone calls became part of our ‘thing'”.
“On the first Late Late of the 2019 season (pre-Covid), we invited members of the Irish frontline services on, as a celebration of the best of Ireland.”
“Sinéad was in her dressing room with her sister, and we were chatting away until she stopped and asked could she meet the frontline personnel, and so off we went to the studio and she shrank into herself, a little overwhelmed by the admiration and appreciation shown to her by the people she had wanted to admire and appreciate. Sinéad had that effect.”
“It’s hard to see it now in the light of her death but Sinéad got a hard time for many years probably because she was misunderstood,” he continued.
“In recent years I’ve taken to comparing her with the ancient Greek figure of Cassandra, who told everyone what was going to happen but was dismissed as a crank, only for her predictions to come true without fail.”
“What a frustrating place to be and yet there she was, warning us about the myriad dangers that faced, and face, us as a society.”
