Sinéad O'Connor: Former teacher describes 'pure' performances in school 

Sinead O'Connor posing on the banks of the River Liffey in 2000. Picture:Eamonn Farrell/RollingNews.ie

Sinéad O'Connor has been described as "so pure, so genuine and so real" by one of her former teachers.

Joe Falvey was speaking in the wake of the announcement of her death at the age of 56.

Mr Falvey taught her while she attended Newtown School in Waterford during the 1980s for her fifth and sixth year in secondary education.

  

Speaking with Oliver Callan on RTÉ Radio 1 on Thursday morning, Mr Falvey said he would come across the teenage Sinéad strumming her guitar in the grounds of the boarding school. When he asked her the name of the song, she said it was hers.

He said how his amazement at her voice and performances led to him getting in touch with folk singer Dominic Mulvaney to give her a shot in a support slot.

He explained: "It was one of the most memorable moments in my life. Everybody turned around. I said 'What in the name of God?' 

Sinéad O'Connor. Picture: Getty Images

"Because that power from this young slim girl and it was a shattering moment. I had heard her singing gently around the school. This was power. 

"And Dominic Mulvany, the main act that was sitting alongside me, turned around and said, 'How the F am I supposed to follow that?'"

Mr Falvey said what amazed him that night, and many other occasions, “was the sophistication, the maturity of the level of lyrics she was writing and singing with an incredible belief and passion. So it was there from the very beginning”.

Off the back of the performance, he brought her to a recording studio to record a cassette for a competition she wanted to enter. He said Ms O'Connor was already acting as a producer, even at the age of 16. 

Mr Falvey said he still had the cassette.

After she left school, despite Mr Falvey’s efforts to persuade her to sit the Leaving Cert, he did not hear from her for over a year and a half.

He explained: "Then the postman arrives one day with her first album The Lion and the Cobra. She sent that to me. 'To Joe'. I have it in my hands. So we stayed in contact, then every so often over subsequent years, she rang me up and she said, look, so-and-so is doing a biography. I hope you are happy to be interviewed.

She was so pure. She was so genuine and so real. There was no compromising. And I was proud of her. 

"And I was very pleased that when she did her biography I was the only teacher she mentioned. I was pleased to get her recognition over the years."