‘Losing Sinead was devastating for so many, this is how I will remember her on her birthday’
When Kathryn Ferguson and a small team embarked on a film about Sinead O’Connor, she didn’t know it would be such a poignant experience. Here, on what would have been her 57th birthday, she reflects on the loss of a remarkable woman – and tells the extraordinary and moving story of the making of her first film
Today is my four-year-old son’s birthday, he was born on 8 December 2019, on Sinead O’Connor’s 53rd birthday. This year she would have been 57. When he was born, my debut feature documentary, Nothing Compares, was in its infancy. Myself and a small team had just recorded an interview with Sinead and her closest friend and “comrade in arms” John Reynolds. We knew that this candid interview was something truly unique and special, but none of us realised how it would become the cornerstone of our film.
People often describe our film Nothing Compares as a music documentary, but to me, it’s much more personal than that. It’s a meditation on grief. During the making of it, when Sinead was still alive, I would have vivid dreams where she and I talked about my reasons for making this film. I remember one early one, she was wary and I sat her down and told her, from the bottom of my heart, what she had meant to me as an Irish woman; how she had inspired me, about the fire she had lit in my belly and that I shared the same rage as her. I woke up with a wet face and was startled at how intense our conversation had been. From that moment on, doors kept swinging open and as a small film team we cautiously put one foot in front of the other.
For a film that, on paper, should have been nearly impossible to get made (and why it hadn’t been made in the 30 years prior) it felt like it was willing itself into existence. I think a lot of it had to do with the timing of when we brought it to Sinead’s team. It was early 2018 and women were using their voices to speak out against a world that wasn’t made for them. We’d had the MeToo and Time’s Up movements, Trump was in power, Weinstein was about to be charged and, in my home country of Ireland, a very different country was emerging. In 2015 we had seen the successful equal marriage referendum vote and we were gearing up for the Repeal the 8th referendum in June that year. There was little mention of Sinead in any of it, yet here was a woman who had inspired so many to speak out, particularly in Ireland.
I grew up with Sinead. I was very lucky to have a father who adored and respected her and played her first album The Lion and the Cobra on repeat as we drove around rainy Belfast. Her music became the visceral soundtrack to my childhood. I’d never heard anyone else make the noises that came out of her and I knew that there was something very special about her. In my early teens, I discovered her for a second time when she became a guiding light for me and my friends, helping us navigate the confusion of teenage life in early 1990s Ireland. The Troubles were still rumbling on in the north and the Catholic Church still had us in a vice grip in the south. Ireland was still a country that treated its women and girls as second-class citizens. Sinead’s revolutionary spirit and ability to talk about uncomfortable truths made us feel seen and I could really hear what she was saying.
The shocking backlash against her would start a year later. As a fellow Irish woman, it felt terrible to witness and it left an emotional dent on me. It was this dent that I can now pinpoint as the first step on the ladder towards the birth of Nothing Compares.
There was an audible intake of breath and then one by one the whole cinema stood up and started cheering. From that minute on, I knew what we’d made was going to do the job as planned
As a film team of three, myself as director, Michael Mallie and Eleanor Emptage as my co-writers and producers, we worked carefully with John to make sure every step was made with respect and care. John was the glue that kept it all together, protecting Sinead and protecting me from making any wrong moves that would have meant the whole project would fall apart. He felt deep down it was of utmost importance that her story was told in the right way.
We had so many challenges. Both Eleanor and I had our first babies and I had serious health complications after the birth of my son; Covid hit and, at points, it felt like it was too much of an uphill struggle. One of my happiest memories was when we heard it had been selected for the Sundance festival. The euphoria was tempered days later when we were denied permission to include Sinead’s cover of the Prince song “Nothing Compares 2 U”, which meant significant last-minute edit changes. The team rallied and it was a powerful reminder that through trust and creative collaboration, you can overcome seemingly insurmountable obstacles.
What we simply couldn’t overcome weeks later was news about a tragedy in Sinead’s personal life. The film and its many struggles paled into utter insignificance compared to what she and the family was going through and at one point we were going to pull it completely. After many discussions with her team, it was decided the premiere would go ahead. This was a film that had her back and let her tell her own story. Sundance had gone online that year due to Covid, so I watched the premiere happen on a TV in England with my partner in the middle of the night. The reviews started flooding in, there were so many and they were overwhelmingly positive. But it took many months to be able to feel joy about the film’s reception. I felt so worried about Sinead. But after its European premiere, the response to our film flew, in fact it soared; the festival run, the cinema releases and the films’ award run were unbelievable.
What did I want the audience to feel watching Nothing Compares? I wanted them to see Sinead as I saw her. I wanted her to be where she belonged – revered and respected. I wanted the audience to feel furious about how she had been treated, have a good cry, but leave feeling galvanised. I wanted to set the story straight and start a conversation. From its very first screening the outpouring of love for Sinead has been profound.
One of those poignant moments was its Irish premiere at the Galway Film Fleadh in July last year. Nervous, as it was the first time it was going to be screened at home, I sat in with the audience and tried to read the room. It was a quiet tense screening, with ages ranging from early teens to 90-year-olds. The tension continued until we reached one of the key scenes in the film, when Sinead chose to go on Saturday Night Live and rip up a picture of the Pope. There was an audible intake of breath and then one by one the whole cinema stood up and started cheering. Here was a society with so much lingering trauma caused by the legacy of the catholic church finally getting some catharsis. From that minute on, I knew what we’d made was going to do the job as planned.
We lost Sinead this summer on 26 July and it was devastating. I was on my way to do a pre-planned interview about the up-and-coming TV release of the film and as I came out of the Tube at Oxford Circus I saw I had a number of missed calls from Sinead’s team. As the heavens opened, the phone rang and I was told the news.
I still haven’t quite accepted Sinead is gone and have deep moments of grief. What has helped me through this period is the knowledge that she did get to see the response to the film, she did get to see the reckoning it created, she did get to feel the love. It touched her deeply.
What I hadn’t anticipated was that with the timing of Nothing Compares finally being released on TV it meant that many people watched the film in the days after she passed and I was touched to hear that our film brought her fans some comfort. I watched it that weekend too, with the film’s editor Mick Mahon and a bunch of amazing Irish Women in my current home of Margate and we wept, sang and hugged. The film’s legacy is to keep spreading it to as many young people as possible, reminding them how important it is to speak out and to all of us to treat each other more kindly.
So, today on her birthday and Sinead ever present in my head, I will light a candle for her. After that I will go back chasing after my little four-year-old who is already a huge fan of her music and we will dance our hearts out as we very often do to “Mandinka”.
‘Nothing Compares’ is available to watch on Sky TV
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