How I Met My Partner: Cork couple Sinéad and Eamonn have been inseparable since schooldays

EAMONN O’Caoimh and Sinéad Sheppard were so inseparable in school even teachers never managed to keep them apart.

Of course, people now realise they were fighting a losing battle. It comes more than 25 years after the couple became an item in transition year at Coláiste an Phiarsaigh, Glanmire. Fine Gael councillor Sinéad Sheppard and her husband Eamonn are now happily married with three children — Charlie, who is 10, eight-year-old Bobby, and five-year-old Oscar. Sinéad, who found fame with the band Six on the television programme Popstars in 2002, reflected on the early days of their relationship.

“I can still remember us being in class together as kids of 13 or 14,” the Cobh native said. “We were only babies back then. At that time, we weren’t even thinking about going out together. However, we always gravitated towards each other. No matter how many times we moved classes we always found each other and sat together in class. Teachers told us that we shouldn’t be sitting next to each other because all we did was chat.”

She listed some of the things that set them apart as a couple: “A lot of the couples you hear about who met in school broke up and reconnected at some point,” she said. 

Unusual

“Eamonn and I are probably unusual in that we have never broken up. Outside of everything else we have always been best friends and I think that’s what keeps us together. We were very different in a sense. I loved theatre and singing and they formed a big part of my afterschool activities. Eamonn on the other hand would be up at 5am to go swimming with Dolphin Swimming Club.

“The biggest similarity is that we are both very outgoing. They say that one half of a couple is normally introverted while the other is extroverted. However, that’s not the case with us at all as we are both very sociable.”

Sinéad cast her mind back to their first kiss.

“I can’t remember much about our first kiss. It didn’t feel like a very big deal at the time. It was in Glanmire Village and we were still in our uniforms. I say it wasn’t a big deal but if I ever see one of my boys kissing a girl on the street in their school uniform it will probably be a different story,” she laughed.

The couple enjoyed exchanging stories after school.

“We would sit under an archway in Glanmire after school and just hang around and talk,” she said. 

“My grandad would always end up waiting a half an hour for us when he collected me from school because we were doing that much talking. I remember him asking how we could still have been talking when we had so much time to chat in school.”

Sinéad’s grandparents approved of her boyfriend from day one: “He has been hanging around since the age of 16 and there has never been anybody else. He became like a son to them over the years.”

Strong

The couple’s love for each other is still as strong today as it was in school: “We were so young when we got together but I still feel the same way about him as I did back then.

“Not everybody finds ‘the one’ while they are in school but I’m aways very grateful that I did. I’m very lucky — when I think about it — that we don’t have the baggage that a lot of other people might have.”

Sinéad made the most of every free minute with Eamonn during her music career with pop band Six which lasted from 2001 to 2003: “There were always parties and glitzy events but any free time I had was spent back in Cork with Eamonn. When we were in our twenties people used to always say that we had something special.”

The couple are now at a very different stage of their life: “When you have kids it completely reaffirms your relationship. It’s never really the same after that but a relationship can’t just stay static and has to grow in some way.

Daydreams

“I’m extremely grateful that I came from an encouraging household where we were taught to believe that daydreams were never out of our reach. I now have the same approach with my own children.”

She described the family’s day to day life as “hectic” adding: “People are always shocked when we tell them our schedule. We don’t do date nights because everything is far too busy. The three boys are all mad into sport. The only time we have free is Saturday night which we put aside for movie nights with the kids.

“All our time is spent with them and we would choose our movie night over a date night any day.”