Sinéad O’Connor’s Dublin: ‘People did love her. I wonder, did she feel all that love when she was alive?’

“Do I want to talk about Sinéad? Where do I start?” asked Deirdre Foley, when stopped on South Anne Street on Thursday afternoon. “I cried when I heard the news. I couldn’t talk. And now everyone is going to talk about how amazing she was, and she won’t be here to hear it.”

Foley was with her friend Lorraine Haigney, and they had met up specially for lunch to process the news of O’Connor’s death together.

“We weren’t meant to meet up today, but we texted last night and felt we had to talk about it with each other,” said Haigney. “I wanted her to get the flowers – the praise she deserved – while she was alive. She put out so much energy for other people, and I wish she could have got some of that back for herself.”

Foley says: “There could have been a whole festival just for her, when she was alive. We were only saying that there will have to be some kind of event to remember her, because women will especially need that.”

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Haigney cited Troy as her favourite song. “Because it has so much pain in it. And I think there was so much limitation in the past on women in Ireland expressing their pain.”

David Hayden was taking a break from busking on St Andrew’s Street. “I can’t get over the news,” he said. “I’m only 22, but the thought of living in the world as an Irish person without Sinéad O’Connor in it is just wrong. My parents were fans. I grew up listening to The Lion and the Cobra. I know everyone is saying nothing compares to her, like the song, but it’s true. She was one of a kind.”

And then he took up his guitar and started singing Nothing Compares 2 U, while a crowd began to gather around him.

A man in a Dublin GAA jersey walking down Aston Place put out his hand and touched the face of O’Connor painted on the wall there as he went by. Over her head are written the words, “Sinéad you were right all along, we were wrong. So sorry.”

Some tourists wandering around Temple Bar – German, French, Norwegian – had not previously heard the news of the singer’s death. But they all knew her name, and they all immediately offered up the knowledge of her most famous song.

“That song.”

“That amazing song.”

“The sad song with the video. The Nothing Compares song.”

“I was always a fan. Once a fan, always a fan. She was never afraid of expressing her views,” said Derek McCallig, who was sitting out on Anglesea Street. “I saw her once or twice, when she was very young. I used to see her in the Bamboo Cafe on George’s Street in Dún Laoghaire. That was where all the arty crowd congregated. Bob Geldof used to be in there too. That was the place to go. They’d meet there for coffee and then go to a pub across the road called Walter’s.”

In Tower Records upstairs in Eason, Troy Martin reported that a number of people had already been in that morning, looking for Sinéad O’Connor’s music. “The Lion and the Cobra. That’s the one everyone is buying today. But in fairness, we do sell her music on a regular basis anyway. She was a legend.”

He acknowledged the fact that his own first name is the same as one on that first album. It’s not his favourite song though. His favourite is Nothing Compares 2 U.

One of O’Connor’s many collaborations with other musicians was her haunting rendition with The Chieftains of the ballad The Foggy Dew.

The Foggy Dew pub on Upper Fownes Street was just opening up for the day at lunchtime.

“She was a bit before my time, but all the regulars love her music,” said John Nesbitt, who was behind the bar, and confessed to being more of a heavy metal fan. “We will definitely be playing her version of The Foggy Dew in here tonight. One hundred per cent we will.”

Catherine Claffey, a flower seller on Grafton Street, said: “I loved her music and I feel very sad she’s gone. My favourite song was Nothing Compares 2 U. It’s probably everyone’s favourite song. When you listen to that song, it feels like she was singing it to someone she really really loved, because her whole heart and soul was in that song.”

Debbie Treacy was standing outside Brown Thomas, looking at her phone. “Her music reminds me of growing up,” she said. “I think it’s really sad that everyone is saying such nice things about her now that she is dead, but where were they when she was alive? She was a trailblazer. People did love her. I wonder, did she feel all that love when she was alive?”