Sinéad O'Connor

Sinéad Marie Bernadette O'Connor ( shin-AYD; 8 December 1966 – 26 July 2023), also known as Shuhada' Sadaqat, was an Irish singer and songwriter. During her musical career, which encompassed several hit records and artist collaborations, O'Connor drew attention to issues such as child abuse, human rights, racism, and women's rights. She was also known for her outspoken public image, openly discussing her spiritual journey, activism, socio-political viewpoints, and struggles with mental health.

O'Connor's debut studio album, The Lion and the Cobra, was released in 1987 and achieved international chart success. Her 1990 album, I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got, was her biggest commercial success, selling over seven million copies worldwide. Its lead single, "Nothing Compares 2 U", became her signature song and was named the top world single of the year at the Billboard Music Awards. During a performance on Saturday Night Live in 1992, O'Connor tore up a photograph of Pope John Paul II which sparked global controversy, nearly a decade before the Catholic Church sexual abuse cases became widely publicized.

O'Connor's next albums Am I Not Your Girl? (1992) and Universal Mother (1994) were both certified gold in the UK, while Faith and Courage (2000) was certified gold in Australia and Throw Down Your Arms (2005) was certified gold in Ireland. Having converted to Islam in 2018, she adopted the name Shuhada' Sadaqat while continuing to perform and record under her birth name. Her memoir, Rememberings, was released in 2021 and became a bestseller. In 2024, O'Connor was posthumously nominated for induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Sinéad Marie Bernadette O'Connor was born on 8 December 1966 at the Cascia House Nursing Home on Baggot Street in Dublin. She was named Sinéad after Irish author Sinéad de Valera, the mother of the doctor who presided over her delivery, Éamon de Valera jnr, and Bernadette in honour of Saint Bernadette of Lourdes. She was the third of five children; an older brother is the novelist Joseph O'Connor. Her parents were John Oliver "Seán" O'Connor, a structural engineer who later became a barrister and chairperson of the Divorce Action Group, and Johanna Marie O'Grady (1939–1985), who married in 1960 at the Church of Our Lady of Good Counsel, Drimnagh, Dublin. She attended Dominican College Sion Hill school in Blackrock, Dublin.

In her 2021 memoir, Rememberings, O'Connor wrote that she was regularly beaten by her mother, who also taught her to steal from the collection plate at Mass and from charity tins. In 1979, at age 13, O'Connor went to live with her father, who had recently returned to Ireland after marrying Viola Margaret Suiter (née Cook) in Alexandria, Virginia, United States, in 1976. She shared a room with her sister; on her own side, O'Connor papered the walls with posters of Siouxsie Sioux to mark her difference. She listened to music with noisy electric guitars; she stated, "in real life you aren't allowed to say you're angry but in music you can say anything".

At the age of 15, following her acts of shoplifting and truancy, O'Connor was placed for 18 months in the Grianán Training Centre in Drumcondra, which was run by the Order of Our Lady of Charity. She thrived in certain aspects, particularly in the development of her writing and music, but she chafed under the imposed conformity of the asylum, despite being given freedoms not granted to the other girls, such as attending an outside school and being allowed to listen to music, write songs, etc. For punishment, O'Connor described how "if you were bad, they sent you upstairs to sleep in the old folks' home. You're in there in the pitch black, you can smell the shit and the puke and everything, and these old women are moaning in their sleep ... I have never—and probably will never—experience such panic and terror and agony over anything." She later attended Maryfield College in Drumcondra, and Newtown School in Waterford for fifth and sixth year as a boarder, but did not sit the Leaving Certificate in 1985.

On 10 February 1985, when O'Connor was 18, her mother died in a car accident, aged 45, after losing control of her car on an icy road in Ballybrack and crashing into a bus. In June 1993, O'Connor wrote a public letter in The Irish Times in which she asked people to "stop hurting" her: "If only I can fight off the voices of my parents / and gather a sense of self-esteem / Then I'll be able to REALLY sing..." The letter repeated accusations of child abuse by her parents as a child which O'Connor had made in interviews. Her brother Joseph defended their father to the newspaper, but agreed regarding their mother's "extreme and violent abuse, both emotional and physical". That month, Sinéad said: "Our family is very messed up. We can't communicate with each other. We are all in agony. I, for one, am in agony."

One of the volunteers at the Grianán centre was the sister of Paul Byrne, the drummer for the band In Tua Nua, who heard O'Connor singing "Evergreen" by Barbra Streisand. She recorded a song with them called "Take My Hand" but they felt that at 15, she was too young to join the band. Through an ad she placed in Hot Press in mid-1984, she met Colm Farrelly. Together they recruited a few other members and formed a band, Ton Ton Macoute. The band moved to Waterford briefly while O'Connor attended Newtown School, but she soon dropped out of school and followed them to Dublin, where their performances received positive reviews. Their sound was inspired by Farrelly's interest in world music, though most observers thought O'Connor's singing and stage presence were the band's strongest features.

O'Connor's time with Ton Ton Macoute brought her to the attention of the music industry, and she was eventually signed by Ensign Records. She also acquired an experienced manager, Fachtna Ó Ceallaigh, former head of U2's Mother Records. Soon after she was signed, she embarked on her first major assignment, providing the vocals for the song "Heroine", which she co-wrote with the U2 guitarist the Edge for the soundtrack to the film Captive. Ó Ceallaigh, who had been fired by U2 for complaining about them in an interview, was outspoken with his views on music and politics, and O'Connor adopted the same habits; she defended the actions of the Provisional IRA and said U2's music was "bombastic". She later retracted her IRA comments saying they were based on nonsense, and that she was "too young to understand the tense situation in Northern Ireland properly".

O'Connor's first album, The Lion and the Cobra, was "a sensation" when it was released in 1987 on Chrysalis Records. O'Connor named Bob Dylan, David Bowie, Bob Marley, Siouxsie and the Banshees, and the Pretenders as the artists who influenced her on her debut album. The Lion and the Cobra was the first of a series of albums that she co-produced. The single "Mandinka" was a college radio hit in the United States, and "I Want Your (Hands on Me)" received both college and urban play in a remixed form that featured rapper MC Lyte. The song "Troy" was also released as a single in the UK, Ireland, and the Netherlands, where it reached number five on the Dutch Top 40 chart. Enya appeared on the track "Never Get Old" reciting psalm 91 in the Irish language.

In her first US network television appearance, O'Connor sang "Mandinka" on Late Night with David Letterman in 1988. She was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance, and performed "Mandinka" at the 31st Annual Grammy Awards. She painted the logo of the hip hop group Public Enemy on her head to protest the first-ever Best Rap Performance award being conferred off-screen.

In 1989, O'Connor provided guest vocals on the The's album Mind Bomb, on the duet "Kingdom of Rain". That same year, she made another foray into cinema, starring in and writing the music for the Northern Irish film Hush-a-Bye-Baby.

O'Connor's second album, I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got, was released in 1990. It gained considerable attention and mostly positive reviews. NME named it the year's second-best album. She was praised for her voice and original songs, while being noted for her appearance: trademark shaved head, often angry expression, and sometimes shapeless or unusual clothing. Her shaved head has been seen as a statement against traditional views of femininity.

The album featured Marco Pirroni (formerly of Adam and the Ants), Andy Rourke (from the Smiths) and John Reynolds, her first husband. It contained her international breakthrough hit "Nothing Compares 2 U", a song written by Prince and originally recorded and released by a side project of his, the Family. Hank Shocklee, producer for Public Enemy, remixed the album's next single, "The Emperor's New Clothes", for a 12-inch that was coupled with another song from the LP, "I Am Stretched on Your Grave". Pre-dating but included on I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got, was "Jump in the River", which originally appeared on the Married to the Mob soundtrack; the 12-inch version of the single had included a remix featuring performance artist Karen Finley.

O'Connor withdrew from a scheduled appearance on the American programme Saturday Night Live when she learnt that it was to be hosted by Andrew Dice Clay, who she said was disrespectful to women. In July 1990, O'Connor joined other guests for the former Pink Floyd member Roger Waters' performance of The Wall in Berlin. She contributed a cover of "You Do Something to Me" to the Cole Porter tribute/AIDS fundraising album Red Hot + Blue produced by the Red Hot Organization. Her take on Elton John's "Sacrifice", recorded for the tribute album Two Rooms: Celebrating the Songs of Elton John & Bernie Taupin, was described by AllMusic as finding "the tortured soul" of the song "in a way that the original recording never did".

O'Connor said she would not perform if the United States national anthem was played before one of her concerts in 1990, saying she felt the American music industry was racist. She was attacked as ungrateful and anti-American, and drew criticism from celebrities including the singer Frank Sinatra, who threatened to "kick her in the ass". When people steamrolled her albums outside the offices of her record company in New York City, O'Connor attended in a wig and sunglasses and gave a television interview pretending to be from Saratoga.

O'Connor was nominated for four awards at the 33rd Annual Grammy Awards and won for Best Alternative Music Performance. She refused to attend the ceremony or accept her award, and wrote an open letter to the Recording Academy criticising the industry for promoting materialistic values over artistic merit. At the Brit Awards 1991, she won the Brit Award for International Female Solo Artist, but did not attend the ceremony. She accepted the Irish IRMA in February 1991.

Faith and Courage was released in 2000, including the single "No Man's Woman", and featured contributions from Wyclef Jean of the Fugees and Dave Stewart of Eurythmics.

In 2001, she was featured as the vocalist for the song "Guide Me God" by Ghostland, which had been subsequently remixed into a club hit by producer and DJ Paul Van Dyk.

Her 2002 album, Sean-Nós Nua, marked a departure in that O'Connor interpreted or, in her own words, "sexed up" traditional Irish folk songs, including several in the Irish language. In Sean-Nós Nua, she covered a well-known Canadian folk song, "Peggy Gordon". She was also featured as the vocalist for Conjure One's Tears from the Moon, a defining trance track of its time released in 2002, which was remixed by Tiësto and released in his album Nyana in 2003.

In 2003, she contributed a track to the Dolly Parton tribute album Just Because I'm a Woman, a cover of Parton's "Dagger Through the Heart". That same year, she also featured on three songs of Massive Attack's album 100th Window before releasing her double album, She Who Dwells in the Secret Place of the Most High Shall Abide Under the Shadow of the Almighty. This compilation contained one disc of demos and previously unreleased tracks and one disc of a live concert recording. Directly after the album's release, O'Connor announced that she was retiring from music. Collaborations, a compilation album of guest appearances, was released in 2005—featuring tracks recorded with Peter Gabriel, Massive Attack, Jah Wobble, Terry Hall, Moby, Bomb the Bass, the Edge, U2, and The The.

Ultimately, after a brief period of inactivity and a bout with fibromyalgia, her retirement proved to be short-lived. O'Connor stated in an interview with Harp magazine that she had only intended to retire from making mainstream pop/rock music, and after dealing with her fibromyalgia she chose to move into other musical styles. The reggae album Throw Down Your Arms appeared in late 2005.

In January 2010, O'Connor performed a duet with the R&B singer Mary J. Blige, produced by former A Tribe Called Quest member Ali Shaheed Muhammad, of O'Connor's song "This Is To Mother You" (first recorded by O'Connor on her 1997 Gospel Oak EP). The proceeds of the song's sales were donated to the organisation GEMS (Girls Educational and Mentoring Services). In 2012 the song "Lay Your Head Down", written by Brian Byrne and Glenn Close for the soundtrack of the film Albert Nobbs, and performed by O'Connor, was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song.

In 2011, O'Connor worked on recording a new album, titled Home, to be released in the beginning of 2012, titled How About I Be Me (and You Be You)?, with the first single being "The Wolf is Getting Married". She planned an extensive tour in support of the album but suffered a serious breakdown between December 2011 and March 2012, resulting in the tour and all her other musical activities for the rest of 2012 being cancelled. O'Connor resumed touring in 2013 with The Crazy Baldhead Tour. The second single "4th and Vine" was released on 18 February 2013.

In February 2014, it was revealed that O'Connor had been recording a new album of original material, titled The Vishnu Room, consisting of romantic love songs. In early June 2014, the new album was retitled I'm Not Bossy, I'm the Boss, with an 11 August release date. The title derives from the Ban Bossy campaign that took place earlier the same year. The album's first single is entitled "Take Me to Church".

In November 2014, O'Connor's management was taken over by Simon Napier-Bell and Björn de Water. On 15 November, O'Connor joined the charity supergroup Band Aid 30 along with other British and Irish pop acts, recording a new version of the track "Do They Know It's Christmas?" at Sarm West Studios in Notting Hill, London, to raise money for the West African Ebola virus epidemic.

In 2017, O'Connor changed her legal name to Magda Davitt, saying she wished to be free of "patriarchal slave names" and "parental curses". In September 2019, she performed live for the first time in five years, singing "Nothing Compares 2 U" with the Irish Chamber Orchestra on RTÉ's The Late Late Show.

O'Connor released a cover of Mahalia Jackson's "Trouble of the World" in October 2020, with proceeds from the single to benefit Black Lives Matter charities. O'Connor released the memoir Rememberings on 1 June 2021 to positive reviews, listed among the best books of the year on BBC Culture. The Irish postal service An Post released a postage stamp on July 15, 2021 bearing an image of O'Connor singing.

O'Connor announced in June 2021 that the album No Veteran Dies Alone would be her last, and that she was retiring from music. She retracted the statement days later, describing it as "a knee-jerk reaction" to an insensitive interview, and announced that her scheduled 2022 tour would go ahead. O'Connor's son Shane died by suicide at the age of 17 on 7 January 2022. O'Connor cancelled her tour and No Veteran Dies Alone was postponed indefinitely. According to the producer David Holmes, by the time of O'Connor's death in 2023, the album was "emotional and really personal" and was complete but for one song.

In February 2023, O'Connor shared a version of "The Skye Boat Song", a 19th-century Scottish adaptation of a 1782 Gaelic song, which is also the theme for the fantasy drama series Outlander. The following month she was awarded the inaugural Choice Music Prize Classic Irish Album by the Irish broadcaster RTÉ for her 1990 album I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got. In September 2023, BBC Television drama series The Woman in the Wall, whose subject was the Irish Magdalene Laundries, played an unreleased O'Connor song, "The Magdalene Song". The song had been given to the series' producers by O'Connor shortly before her death.

O'Connor's first son, Jake, was born on 16 June 1987. His father was the music producer John Reynolds, who co-produced several of O'Connor's albums, including Universal Mother. O'Connor married Reynolds at Westminster Register Office in March 1989. She had an abortion the same year, and later wrote the song "My Special Child" about the experience. The couple announced their plan to divorce in November 1991 after having been separated for some time.

In September 1995, O'Connor announced that she was pregnant by her friend, the Irish columnist John Waters. Their daughter, Brigidine Roisin Waters, generally known as Roisin, was born on 6 March 1996. Soon after the birth, the pair began a long custody battle that ended in 1999 with O'Connor agreeing to let Roisin live with Waters in Dublin.

O'Connor stated that she had a relationship with her manager Fachtna Ó Ceallaigh immediately after her marriage to John Reynolds and during the tour of The Lion and the Cobra. The relationship ended in 1989 when O'Connor discovered that Ceallaigh was secretly having an affair with another woman. This experience is reflected in O'Connor's song "The Last Day of Our Acquaintance".

Anthony Kiedis of the Red Hot Chili Peppers said he had a relationship with O'Connor in 1990 and wrote the song "I Could Have Lied" about the experience. O'Connor denied this, saying "I never had a relationship with him, ever. I hung out with him a few times and the row we had was because he suggested we might become involved. I don't give a shit about the song he wrote."

In 2007, O'Connor bought a large Victorian seafront house in Bray, County Wicklow, near Dublin. She sold the property in 2021, after moving temporarily to her holiday home. She later lived at a house in the Kilglass/Scramogue area, between Strokestown and Roosky, County Roscommon, and on the main street of Knockananna, County Wicklow, which she sold in 2022. She later also had a home in Dalkey, a south-east suburb of Dublin. In early 2023, she moved to a flat in London to feel "less lonely", and said she would soon finish her new album.

O'Connor was a vocal supporter of a united Ireland, and called on the left-wing republican Sinn Féin party to be "braver". O'Connor called for the "demolition" of the Republic of Ireland and its replacement with a new, united country. She also called for key Sinn Féin politicians like Gerry Adams to step down because "they remind people of violence", referring to the Troubles.

In 2014, she refused to play in Israel as an act of protest against unjust treatment of Palestinians, stating that "Let's just say that, on a human level, nobody with any sanity, including myself, would have anything but sympathy for the Palestinian plight".

In a 2015 interview with the BBC, O'Connor said she wished that Ireland had remained under British rule (which ended after the Irish War of Independence, except for Northern Ireland), saying "the church took over and it was disastrous". Following the Brexit referendum in 2016, O'Connor wrote on Facebook "Ireland is officially no longer owned by Britain".

In contradiction with Catholic Church doctrine on the ordination of women, O'Connor was ordained in 1999 by Michael Cox, bishop of an Independent Catholic church. The bishop offered her ordination following her appearance on RTÉ's The Late Late Show, during which she told presenter Gay Byrne that had she not been a singer she would have wished to have been a Catholic priest. O'Connor adopted the religious name Mother Bernadette Mary.

In a July 2007 interview with Christianity Today, O'Connor stated that she considered herself a Christian and that she believed in core Christian concepts about the Trinity and Jesus Christ. She said, "I think God saves everybody whether they want to be saved or not. So when we die, we're all going home [...] I don't think God judges anybody. He loves everybody equally." In an October 2002 interview, she credited her Christian faith in giving her the strength to live through and overcome the effects of her childhood abuse.

On 26 March 2010, O'Connor appeared on CNN's Anderson Cooper 360° to speak out about the Catholic sexual abuse scandal in Ireland. On 28 March 2010, she had an opinion piece published in the Sunday edition of The Washington Post in which she wrote about the scandal and her time in a Magdalene laundry as a teenager. Writing for the Sunday Independent she labelled the Vatican as "a nest of devils" and called for the establishment of an "alternative church", opining that "Christ is being murdered by liars" in the Vatican. Shortly after the election of Pope Francis, she said:

Well, you know, I guess I wish everyone the best, and I don't know anything about the man, so I'm not going to rush to judge him on one thing or another, but I would say he has a scientifically impossible task, because all religions, but certainly the Catholic Church, is really a house built on sand, and it's drowning in a sea of conditional love, and therefore it can't survive, and actually the office of Pope itself is an anti-Christian office, the idea that Christ needs a representative is laughable and blasphemous at the same time, therefore it is a house built on sand, and we need to rescue God from religion, all religions, they've become a smokescreen that distracts people from the fact that there is a holy spirit, and when you study the Gospels you see the Christ character came to tell us that we only need to talk directly to God, we never needed Religion ...

Asked whether from her point of view, it is therefore irrelevant who is elected to be pope, O'Connor replied:

In the early 2000s, O'Connor revealed that she suffered from fibromyalgia. The pain and fatigue she experienced caused her to take a break from music from 2003 to 2005.

On an episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show broadcast on 4 October 2007, O'Connor disclosed that she had attempted suicide on her 33rd birthday, 8 December 1999, and that she had since been diagnosed with bipolar disorder.

In August 2015, she announced that she was to undergo a hysterectomy after suffering gynaecological problems for over three years. She later blamed the hospital's refusal to administer hormone replacement therapy after the operation as the main reason for her mental health issues in subsequent years, stating "I was flung into surgical menopause. Hormones were everywhere. I became very suicidal. I was a basket case."

A cannabis smoker for 30 years, O'Connor went to a rehabilitation centre in 2016, to end her addiction. She stated in February 2020 that she was agoraphobic. She had also previously been diagnosed with complex post-traumatic stress disorder and borderline personality disorder.

In August 2017, O'Connor posted a 12-minute video on her Facebook page in which she stated that she had felt alone since losing custody of her 13-year-old son, Shane, and that for the previous two years she had wanted to kill herself, with only her doctor and psychiatrist "keeping her alive". The month after her Facebook post, O'Connor appeared on the 16th-season debut episode of American television talk show Dr. Phil. According to the show's host, Phil McGraw, O'Connor wanted to do the interview because she wished to "destigmatise mental illness", noting the prevalence of mental health problems among musicians. In 2021, O'Connor commented that she had spent much of the last six years in St Patrick's University Hospital in Dublin, and that she was grateful to them for helping her stay alive.

O'Connor died on 26 July 2023 in her flat in Herne Hill, South London, at the age of 56. The death certificate stated her cause of death as "exacerbation of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and bronchial asthma together with low grade lower respiratory tract infection", and the coroner said that she died of natural causes.

A private funeral was held on 8 August in Bray, County Wicklow. It was attended by the president of Ireland, Michael D. Higgins, and O'Connor's family invited the public to pay their respects at the seafront where the funeral cortège passed. Thousands attended bearing signs and tributes; her burial was held privately at Dean's Grange Cemetery.

O'Connor left a sum of £1.7 million (€2 million) to her children Jake Reynolds, Brigidine Roisin Waters, and Yeshua Bonadio. After settling debts, funeral expenses, and legal fees, records from Irish probate reduced the estate's value to £1.4 million (€1.6 million).

Following O'Connor's death, celebrities including BP Fallon, Imelda May, MC Lyte, Janelle Monáe, Enya, Patton Oswalt, Jamie Lee Curtis, Tori Amos, Bear McCreary, Massive Attack, Public Enemy, Amanda Palmer, and Toni Collette posted tributes on social media. Morrissey wrote a tribute criticising the reaction from executives and celebrities: "You praise her now only because it is too late. You hadn't the guts to support her when she was alive and she was looking for you."

Phoebe Bridgers wrote a tribute to O'Connor in Rolling Stone, praising her integrity. In November 2023, the American indie rock supergroup Boygenius and the Irish folk music duo Ye Vagabonds released a cover of the Scottish traditional song "The Parting Glass" as a charity Christmas song and tribute to O'Connor.

On 9 January 2024, it was announced that a tribute concert for O'Connor and Shane MacGowan from the Pogues, who also died in 2023, would take place on 20 March in Carnegie Hall in New York City.

On 4 February 2024, Annie Lennox paid tribute to O'Connor by performing "Nothing Compares 2 U" during the In Memoriam segment at the 66th Annual Grammy Awards. During the performance she had a tear painted on her cheek in homage to a similar scene in the song's music video. She was accompanied by Wendy & Lisa. Lennox ended the performance by calling for a ceasefire in the Gaza war and "peace in the world" which was also seen as a tribute to O'Connor's political outspokenness. In March 2024, a Bratz doll in O'Connor's likeness, to commemorate Women's History Month, was announced.

On 15 July 2021, the Irish postal service, An Post, released a postage stamp celebrating O'Connor.

She was parodied as Niamh Connolly, a feminist singer played by Scottish singer Clare Grogan, in "Rock a Hula Ted", an episode of the television series Father Ted.

Producers of the Outlander television series dedicated Series 7, Episode 8 to her, adding a card before the end credits reading, "In loving memory of Sinead O'Connor."

"You Made Me the Thief of Your Heart", from the film In the Name of the Father (1993), was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song in 1994. This nomination is credited to songwriters Bono, Gavin Friday, and Maurice Seezer.

"Lay Your Head Down", from the film Albert Nobbs (2011), was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song in 2012. This nomination is credited to composer Brian Byrne and songwriter Glenn Close.

In 2019, Time created 89 new covers to celebrate women of the year starting from 1920; it chose O'Connor for 1992.