Saoirse Hanley: As a ‘Liam Payne girl’, how do you reckon with the tragedy of losing someone you actually never knew?

Pictured: Saoirse Hanley and a friend at a One Direction concert

After One Direction’s second Dublin gig, in 2013, my friend and I were outside the 3Arena, high on life and unfettered teenage hysteria. A man outside the venue was selling 1D wares at a post-concert discount, and we bought hats. They both said I HEART NIALL and I was upset because – as much as I loved Niall Horan – it didn’t feel authentic. They had sold out of what I really wanted: a hat that said I HEART LIAM.

There are lots of boxes to put yourself into as a teenage girl, but by far the most divisive in my youth was which One Direction member was ‘yours’, and I was a Liam girl. As in, Liam Payne was the object of 90pc of my teenage affections. Who could have blamed me? The floppy haired Wolverhampton teenager had two X Factor appearances on our TV screens before making the big time.