Sinéad O’Connor’s death ‘just tragic, but not inevitable at all’ - Neil Jordan

Film director Neil Jordan, who worked with Sinéad O’Connor on two of his films, The Butcher Boy and Michael Collins, said that her death was “just tragic, but not inevitable at all”.

“That’s the thing that upsets me. I would have liked to have seen what work she could do when she got through all of the troubles and she came out the other side. I’m sure she could have done extraordinary things when she got through this turbulent period in her life. But it wasn’t to be. She died far too young.”

Mr Jordan told RTÉ radio’s News at One that he first encountered the singer when he had been making a movie with Sean Penn who wanted to meet her. “I called her up. I said, look, this guy Sean Penn wants to be with you. And it didn’t happen. But when I came back to Dublin, I met her and we became friends and I stayed in contact with her through many, many years.”

Years later when the director was casting the role of the Virgin Mary in The Butcher Boy he thought the singer would be perfect for the role “because of that face with its simplicity that all those statues we remember when we were kids had, and she said yes immediately. She did it very beautifully and very simply.”

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Mr Jordan added that the singer had “an extraordinary ability to reinterpret any genre of music that she came to”. He asked her to sing the song She Moves Through the Fair for the closing credits of Michael Collins. The composer Elliot Goldenthal, who did the score for the film said that the singer had no vibrato whatsoever in her voice, which created an “extraordinary” effect.

“She was a great singer, really, and I was kind of privileged to have her do this, really. She was one of the most amazing voices that I’ve ever come across.”

The singer was very popular as a performer on film soundtracks because of her ability to “leap from one octave to another”, he said. This was especially evident in her interpretation of the Prince song Nothing Compares to You, which he said she came to hate.

Mr Jordan said the singer had told him that the section where she sang the word ‘nothing’ and suddenly jumped an octave came from traditional sean-nós singing.

“She was remarkably intelligent and remarkably artistic and always made these extraordinary leaps that most of us don’t do. So that’s why I would have loved to see more of her work. The last time I met her, she played to me a song that she just had composed called No Veteran Dies Alone which she had done with David Holmes. It hasn’t been released yet, and it was the most extraordinary ballad. It’s one of the best things she had ever done.”

Remembering Sinéad O’Connor

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Mr Jordan, who is godfather to the singer’s youngest child, said he had known her through her “various ups and downs and misery”. Their paths frequently crossed and they never fell out, which was a feat, he said as she frequently fell out with people, but she would often “get back to loving them”.

The last time they met was a month ago outside a little cottage she was renting in Dalkey. “I was walking down there and she was sitting outside on a bench smoking a cigarette and all these tourists were passing by, none of them knew who she was. So we sat down for a cup of coffee and talked about music and I thought she was great. And then she moved to Brixton. She sent a few texts saying she had left. I just wish she was still around us, that’s all really.”

When asked how he would remember her, Mr Jordan said he would remember her humour and “her mischievous face”.

“Maybe fame kind of lacerated her a bit too much. You know, it’s almost like she wanted to destroy this beautiful, clear face, everything that she had, you know, but she never actually destroyed her voice, which was great in the end,” he said.