Sinéad O’Connor is truly the woman who seems to have launched a thousand Scannals. Her unique voice rocketed her to international stardom, but it was that moment on Saturday Night Live when she tore up a picture of Pope John Paul II that the world remembers. Sinéad started performing at the Waterford Folk & Arts Club, while still a student at Newtown School. It was Joe Falvey, her Irish Teacher in Newtown, who arranged the gig for her. He was a key support to the young Sinéad and went on to organise her first demo tape. He could see that her talent, drive and uncompromising approach would not easily fit into the prescribed norms of the wider society. He said of Sinéad, “that’s (controversy) driven her creativity, one is interlinked with the other. She doesn’t put on a controversial coat and say I’m going to be controversial today – she just is, it just comes out, it’s in her nature.” Headlines and Sinéad were never far apart – and she’s one of a select group of people whose first name is enough. We’ve all come to know who they mean when the headline screams SINÉAD! Whether it was her support for a variety of political causes, her views on abortion, her advocacy for victims of abuse or her religious faith and where it lead her, her looks or even her own sexuality, Sinéad O’Connor could never be accused of pulling her punches. But for the Irish public Sinéad was still a favourite – regularly brought into everyone’s living rooms courtesy of the Late Late Show. That’s how many people who’d never have gone to her concerts got to know and love Sinéad. As Dave Fanning put it, “… to be blunt and not to be as glib as this is going to sound, Sinéad has “issues” of her own and she’s been addressing them down through the years in ways that have made us laugh, made us cringe and made us think, she’s not really doing that, now is she? And it’s so far outside the music remit that I only have the sam