She was at a conference for survivors of industrial school abuse and trauma in a hotel in Dublin’s south inner city.

I barely recognised her as she sat next to a survivor who was raped and beaten in the Artane school for boys.

I was interviewing the man when she gave me her number.

When I took a proper look at the person holding the paper, I saw a tiny woman with big wide eyes looking back at me. She was wearing an oversized trench coat which stretched right down to her feet. On her head was an oversized flat cap. I had to look twice before realising, it’s Sinéad O’Connor, I remember saying to myself, and why wouldn’t she be here? Wasn’t she one of the first people to ever speak out about clerical abuse? She had received such a terrible backlash, for ripping up the pope’s picture, when she was right all along.

I know from writing about the mother and baby homes and the foster care system for the past two decades, that Sinéad O’Connor is to this day, a hero among so many survivors.

I rang her after the conference, and we talked about her own experience in the Magdalene laundry An Grianán, which she later went on to write about in her bestselling book 'Rememberings', which is brilliantly written.

For the next ten years, I was in and out of contact with Sinéad. Tragically, in 2022 her beautiful 17-year-old son Shane ended his own life and we spoke a lot about this.

Sinéad knew I wrote a lot about children in care in Ireland and had a good sense of the system that her child had been in.

I agreed with Sinéad that many politicians love arguing about the past mistakes made in religious and state run institutions – but few speak out about today’s system – which we both said would be the next mother and baby homes scandal.

Sinéad told me she was deeply concerned that her son’s needs were not being met in care. He had missed school a lot and felt ignored. She said he wasn’t being assessed properly and was homesick.

She feared his death many times and described him as “the light of my life” and “an absolute genius.” 

I don’t claim to know anything about Sinéad’s children or her family, but what she told me. But I do know she had deep anguish about the care system and felt powerless going up against the state. 

You only have to look at the damning reports about children in care and children's mental health services published recently to know that Sinéad O’Connor was right, again.

“This country doesn’t give a fucking shit about kids in care” she told me. She asked me to put her in touch with care leavers and to her credit, she reached out to all of them including Heidi Conroy, the daughter of Ronnie Dunbar who raped her and killed her friend Melissa Mahon – who was also in care.

I spoke to Sinéad earlier this year around the time she received a Choice Music award. She talked again about her son Shane. She told me her heart was “in pieces”. I don’t know how any loving parent survives the death of a child, and the sudden death of a child, is simply unimaginable.

In private conversations, as in public, Sinéad was always honest, truthful, funny, and filled with emotion. The world tends not to treat people like Sinéad with great kindness sometimes. She was a woman of great spiritual beliefs and immense talent and I hope, wherever she is now, she is at peace with her beautiful son.