I'll remember it
And Dublin in a rainstorm
And sitting in the long grass in summer
Keeping warm- Sinéad O’Connor, “Troy”
The Book
… I am most looking forward to this summer is Sinéad O’Connor’s memoir Rememberings, which is due out on June 1, and initial reports suggest it wil be worth the wait.
In the summer of 1988 I was young, skinny and working in Jury’s Hotel in Dublin. Sinéad was the shaven-headed curator of an extraordinary voice who had exploded into stardom over the previous six months.
The fifth floor at Jury’s had been renovated some years previously, decorated with modern colours and furniture that no doubt would seem ugly and brash now, but back then they were the height of fashion. VIP guests were often housed along that floor, and Sinéad stayed there briefly while on a PR stint in the Irish capital.
It’s hard to describe the quiet fury of the revolution she started. The baldness was one thing - then you heard the voice. And then you heard what she had to say.
Seeing Sinéad perform Mandinka for the first time, with its choppy chords and dynamic vocal lines, switching from smouldering anger to soaring beauty, changed how I saw women completely.
We grew up in a patriarchal society where women were preferably not seen and not heard. Sinéad changed that.
The Lion And The Cobra was a staggeringly ambitious piece of work for one so young, and so determined not to let her vision be tarnished by the egos of others. For better or worse, and no matter who tried to stop her, Sinéad wanted to be in control of her own destiny.
When others think of Sinéad the default seems to be Nothing Compares 2 U, but for me the song I most associate with her is Troy. It’s a song that has everything - love, longing, desire, anger, betrayal, defiance. It was a coming-of-age song not just for Sinéad, but for Ireland.
I saw her live in the Olympic Ballroom in Dublin shortly after Mandinka had become a hit. She was small and shy, almost afraid to look at the audience when she came out, and then she sang. Something rose up through her boots and it took us all out like a tidal wave, the decades of the pent-up frustration of a young country finally finding its voice through this young woman, part banríon, part bean sí, who had seen all that Ireland had to offer and left her distinctly underwhelmed and raging for what the legends had promised us.
All the material she had was what was on the album; somewhat embarrassed, she repeated Mandinka and left the stage, having grown from a slightly scared performer into a warrior queen before our eyes, telling stories of lovers lost at sea and of Troy and not knowing any pain and not seeing the flame.
That hour split my life in two.
Out of the spotlight, it was hard to believe that the same tiny woman who stepped into the Jurys elevator with me on a summer afternoon was the source of this inferno of art and passion.
She was small, slight, well-dressed, vulnerable, seemingly trying to hide from the world as she walked through it with one of the most famous haircuts on the planet at that time.
I got the briefest of nods that made my heart flutter - I was heading to the fifth floor swap a TV for an American guest, but I got the feeling that me getting off at the same floor would make me seem like a stalker, so I got off a floor early and waited in the stairwell before taking the last flight of stairs up.
But teenager boys can’t resist being teenage boys, and a day later, before she checked out, I pushed a note under her door to tell her how much I loved her music. I never saw her again during that visit and I didn’t get sacked, so at least she didn’t report me to management for being creepy.
I didn’t mean to be. I just wanted to let her know that I got it - what she was trying to say had found its way to me, and even if I didn’t or couldn’t understand it the way she did or the way she meant us too, I knew it was important.
What she went on to do is the stuff of legend; tearing up a picture of the pope in an apparent act of self-sabotage that was actually a break for freedom. Her struggles have been well-documented, but for better or worse, to me she has never been anything but herself, which is the most courageous thing any of us can do.
After reading an incredible profile of her in the New York Times, the last few days have been spent dipping in and out of her back catalogue (The Wolf Is Getting Married is a tremendous tune) and waiting patiently for the book while thinking about the Ireland she helped to shape.
I haven’t asked to interview her as part of the PR work that she is doing for the book, but I might do it yet.
The hard part with such interviews is ignoring the ground that is already well-trodden - the picture of the pope, Prince, her health - and doing something different.
I don't know no shame
I feel no pain
I can't see the flame- Sinéad O’Connor, Mandinka
Maybe it’s best left. Maybe it’s best just to keep my mouth shut for once, and to have the book and the music where she tells her story without any undue influence from the likes of me - after all, she’s been telling us that’s more or less what she wants for the last 35 years.
The Game
Last Sunday saw me back a big-time soccer game that was over before it even began as Barcelona beat Chelsea to be crowned champions of Europe.
It was a privilege to be there, but the joy of my job is not the seeing of the games; it is the telling of the stories, and that is still difficult as we can’t talk to players or managers, or even fans.
To paraphrase James Connolly, sport without its people means nothing to me - the results are a mere footnote. The real joy is in posing the one question that journalists prefer over all others - why?
The Jab
Since Wednesday I’ve been walking around with an armful of Pfizer.
I was booked for 9 AM and the Philadelphia Church in central Stockholm, a stone’s throw from my office/studio at Sankt Eriksplan.
As usual I was ten minutes early but there was no queue. Temperature check, put a mask on, go in, go up the stairs, booth number one. A middle-aged woman with a gentle manner made a little small talk, trying to ascertain if I was nervous. I wasn’t.
I pulled up the right sleeve of my t-shirt and in seconds it was done. She suggested that maybe I’d want to wear a colour other than white next time as she put a plaster on my arm, completely missing where she’d actually given me the injection.
I went to wait for the obligatory fifteen minutes in case of side effects, and shortly afterwards I was back out on the streets again.
That moment may not have brought my part in the pandemic to an end - I can still transmit the virus (which as far as I know I have not had) and I still have to take another shot in six weeks’ time, but it certainly felt like a step in the right direction.
Get yours when you can.
The Podcast
This week I spoke to Jacob Woolf, an Irish Jewish man who I often turn to when it comes to discussing issues of Zionism, antisemitism and geopolitics.
The situation in Israel and Palestine is complex, featuring a lot of factors that are similar to other conflicts - Northern Ireland, South Africa, the expectations of a diaspora - but which is very much unique.
He was his usual self - clear-thinking and informative while being very straight about his own politics and attitudes.
You can hear the conversation here:
The Week Ahead
Next week sees the publication of a lot of the Reuters preview material for Euro 2020, some of which I’m quite happy with. I tried to do something slightly different, using personal stories to do more than “expect this team to do that” or “this player is very important”.
Once that’s published we’ll slide into a summer of sport that will hopefully culminate in an Olympics in Tokyo, but right now the only certainty is uncertainty.