Rats’ emotional tribute to the late Sineád O’Connor

HEARTFELT Geldof mourns ‘close friend’

The late Sinéad O'Connor was described as “relentless” and “a pistol”, the “Maud Gonne of our time”, by Bob Geldof in a tribute to his close friend from the stage at the Cavan Calling festival last Saturday night.

Making both his and the band’s first public statement since Shuhada' Sadaqat, as she was also known, was found unresponsive at her South London flat, July 26, he said: “It's not a good comparison, but I said the sense I have is that Sinéad is the Maud Gonne of our time, and probably just as important in modern Ireland.”

He added: “She was relentless, she had a voice like none of us had ever heard, so pure.”

Appearing back on stage for the encore wearing t-shirts emblazoned with the late Grammy winning singer's picture, Geldof said the performance at Cavan Calling was “definitely for Sinéad”, a person he’d known growing up.

“Sinéad lived down the road from me and Gary, the guitar player in the band who died about six or seven months ago, we are quite literally down the road.

“So we've known that girl most of her life, really. She was a big Rats' fan... so, to be honest with you, that's why we're doing very early stuff and we dedicate this gig to her, it's the only thing we can do as musicians.

“We were friends all the way through. She was signed to the same little record label we were signed to, by the same guy, had the same manager and stuff like that so there's a big connection there.”

Ahead of performing 'Mary of the 4th Form' in her memory, where the band were joined on stage by Cavan guitarist Evan Walsh, Geldolf told the audience that O'Connor would bring the Rats' debut album featuring that track to school and “drive the nuns nuts”.

“It was her favourite Rats' song, and she loved this band,” said Geldof. “She came to many, many, many, gigs as a girl.”

The pair had been in close contact right up until her death, Geldof confiding that some of the text exchanges from her were “laden with desperation and despair and sorrow and some were ecstatically happy. And she was like that.”

He shared his belief too that when O'Connor sparked controversy in 1992 tearing up a photo of Pope John Paul II on US TV in protest at abuses in the Catholic Church, she did so having first seen Geldof rip a picture of John Travolta on Top of the Pops.

“It was a little more extreme than tearing up f**king disco,” he said. “Tearing up the Vatican is a whole other thing, but more correct actually, I should have done it.”

Speaking to The Anglo-Celt after he and his band had come off stage, he said: “It’s a showbiz thing to say ‘I loved her’. But I don’t mean it in a showbiz way. Really I loved her, she was a very close friend.”

Geldof hadn’t made a public comment in relation to his feelings on Sinéad’s passing until the band’s heartfelt tribute to her on stage at Cavan Town’s Egg Market. “My phone was besieged by c**ts [after she died], but said nothing, I couldn’t quite literally, still am blown away by it.”

Geldof tells the Celt that he learned “quite quickly” about Sinead’s passing through a mutual friend who had raised the alarm and ultimately told British police to force the door into the singer’s flat.

“I’d been talking to her. I just couldn’t believe it. Obviously she had her issues shall we say. I’m not capable of making a statement, or using her as an avatar for your own concerns or prejudges. I’ve seen too much of that already. She was this, or she was that. Oh spare me.”