Sharon Neill, Second Sight, Grand Opera House, York, May 26

Blind from birth, Belfast clairvoyant Sharon Neill uses her psychic sixth sense to "give hope and proof to many that death is not an end". Well known in her native Ireland, she does celebrity readings for Van Morrison and Coldplay's Chris Martin and is now undertaking her second nationwide British tour, passing on messages from the other side. Charles Hutchinson hears her story.

How did you discover you had this psychic gift?

"When I was five years old, I started to become aware of it. I used to wake up and hear people talking to me, but I knew they were not physical as it was only happening in my sleep state. It turned out these voices were teaching me to communicate."

Was that frightening?

"I was frightened of them only at the beginning because I couldn't understand them, but they were not frightening in a 'sixth sense' way, and it became comforting as I got older because I started to understand them.

"I didn't see it as a gift; I thought it was just part of growing up and thought everyone did this, but if I had realised that not everyone was having this communication, I might have freaked out."

How did you rise to national attention in Ireland?

"I've been working in Ireland since the 1980s - I'm 38 now - but I didn't start doing TV shows until 1996 after I did a programme in 1995 with the BBC Northern Ireland team. That was a 40-minute documentary about my work, and it's been upwards and onwards for me ever since."

Didn't the Irish rock group Ash play a part in your being 'discovered', leading to your Edinburgh Fringe debut?

"Yes, if it hadn't been for Mark Hamilton - who is Ash's bass guitarist - I wouldn't be talking to you know. He said 'You should come over to England'. He was one of my clients when I was doing some readings at a house in Belfast, and I didn't know Mark or Ash's music or even who Ash were. But he was impressed by what I did, and at that time Ash had just got money from Channel 4 to make a film about the band and their life.

"They asked me to take part in their Love And Destruction documentary, so I took the risk and it worked out fine."

Psychics do not always receive the best press. How have you been treated by public and press?

"I'm the only blind person in the UK to do this work, which makes it unique. I'm not clued in to how people in the audience are dressed, how they look; there's no eye contact, so it's non-visual communication. I do entirely verbal communication.

"The only reason I am glad my blindness is there is that I can reach more people, because they are not so accusatory of me."

This may be an impossible question to answer but if you were not blind, would you still have your psychic gift?

"Yes, I do think I'd have this power. There are lots of blind people, and they don't have the same powers."

Do you see your work as a vocation? Were you drawn to it?

"As regards what draws me to it, it's not a question of me being drawn to it. It's like when people have a vocation as a musician, and for me doing this is natural.

"When I do this work, the rewarding thing for me is to be able to give to people who come to the show support and help when they want proof that life is eternal. All I am doing is proving that point.

"I am a trained counsellor and I have a psychology and sociology degree and I've done business studies, so I'm not someone who was going to do this unless I thought it was worth it. I realised that social work was too bureaucratic and not enough hands-on work, and even counselling is going that way. The work I'm doing is completely hands-on, and I can bring my training into it."

Van Morrison thinks you're worth it, doesn't he? How do you handle this notoriously prickly musician when he wants a reading?

"Hey, he doesn't intimidate me at all. He can be arrogant because he has this attitude that he's a genius but I won't take that from him.

"When he phones me - and it's not regular, he may not phone me for a year - I say to him if you don't treat me with respect... and he says 'OK'.

"I don't treat celebrities as celebrities but as individuals; they are humans and that's how they should be treated."

Your own celebrity status soon could be on the rise on television. True?

"Yes, I've just done a documentary series for BBC2 with two other psychics involved. They're fly-on-the wall portraits in which we talk about our past, our present work and what we envisage happening further down the line in our career paths. It's due to go out in September."

Sharon Neill, Second Sight, Grand Opera House, York, Wednesday, 7.30pm. Tickets: £12 on 0870 606 3595.

Updated: 08:51 Friday, May 21, 2004