She was born into the world in 1990 with her masterful interpretation of the Prince title, Nothing Compares 2 U, propelled planetary star in barely two albums. Behind the success story, Sinead O’Connor did not hide a life punctuated by deep wounds. The singer was scarred by a traumatic childhood, often showed non-conformism and reaffirmed at regular intervals her desire not to conform to the dictates of the music industry.
Born on December 8, 1966 in Dublin, Sinéad Marie Bernadette O’Connor, of Catholic origin, did not have a very happy youth. Her parents divorced when she was eight years old. She lived first with her mother, whom she would later describe as alcoholic and tyrannical, the embodiment in her eyes of an Ireland as devout as it was retrograde, a hypocrisy that she would constantly denounce throughout her life. His father opened up other avenues for him and gave him a taste for music, particularly through traditional Irish songs. “My father’s whispers allowed me to never reject these traditional pieces,” she recalled in Le Monde.
At fifteen, when her school career was marked by absenteeism and her kleptomania played tricks on her, she was placed in a “Magdalene laundry”, correctional establishments, managed by sisters who were supposed to “return on the right path” the “lost girls”. Sinead O’Connor has terrible memories of this period. The singer will be among the first to testify to the mistreatment she suffered there; it will take years for Ireland and the Church to look into the eyes of this shameful part of their history which has resulted in tens of thousands of cases of abuse, women broken for life, discovery of clandestine mass graves where hundreds of babies and children were forgotten.
Sinead O’Connor’s musical career began in 1986 with the group Ton Ton Macoute. The title that she interprets and co-signs Heroine, which became the soundtrack of the film Captive, makes her known to the public. The first album, The Lion and the Cobra, comes a year later. She already addresses themes that will be recurrent in her music, because they have marked her private life: anger, alienation, the relationship to religion. His second album, Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got, carried by the success of Nothing Compares 2 U, sold seven million copies.
Having become a star in two discs, the singer thumbs her nose at the industry, which intends to bet on her image as a beautiful young woman and shaves her head. His message is clear: it’s the music that fans should appreciate, not the physique of its interpreter.
In 1992, a guest on Saturday Night Live, Sinead O’Connor tore up a live photograph of Pope John Paul II after singing a cappella War, Bob Marley’s song. With this media stunt, she intends to denounce the silence around sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. His intervention caused a scandal and earned him a boo during an appearance at Madison Square Garden in New York, two weeks later, during a concert to celebrate singer Bob Dylan’s thirty-year career. From controversy to controversy, the intervention almost buries his career.
Coming from a family that is both pious and deranged, the singer rejects the rigorous Catholicism that stole her childhood, without ever ceasing to pursue the faith. In 1999, she was ordained a priest by a dissident Irish bishop. Later, she discovers the Jamaican community in London and adopts the Rasta religion. “In Ireland, our religious and musical culture separates sex from spirituality. Reggae and Rasta religion reconcile soul and sensuality. We have in common to have been colonized by the English and the same sense of rebellion, ”she confides to Le Monde. She now wants to be called Mother Bernadette Mary. At the same time, she asks to be excommunicated by the Vatican.
A new album, Faith and Courage, was released in 2000. The singer no longer had the success of her early days, and was better known for her religious adventures than her music. Later, continuing her quest for spirituality, she converted to Buddhism before turning to Islam in 2018. New religion, new name: she now wishes to be called Shuhada’Davitt.
Rebellious singer, Sinead O’Connor demonstrates in London against the war in Iraq. “If I were God, I would sue anyone who speaks in my name: George Bush, Ariel Sharon or bin Laden. The recourse to war above all demonstrates an immense spiritual void,” she confides about the conflict. She collaborates with Robert Del Naja, leader of the group Massive Attack and British anti-war activist. At the same time, she recorded 1,000 Mirrors alongside another very committed group, Asian Dub Foundation.
After a seventeen-year long exile, she returned to live in Dublin in 2001 with her two children. Sean-Nos Nua (“Old New Songs” in Gaelic) is intended as the disc of reconciliation with his native country. She will announce several times that she is done with her career as a musician, before always changing her mind. His mental health worries those close to him, especially after his sudden disappearance in 2016 which ends with a return to Chicago.
Little spared by life, Sinead O’Connor will once again be struck by horror when her seventeen-year-old son commits suicide in January 2022. The singer, depressed, confides that she no longer wants to live, asks to be hospitalized . Plans for a tour and an eleventh disc are postponed. She communicates with the world through social networks, where she shared without filter moods and moods, her discomfort, her health problems, both physical and mental. Returned to live in London a few days before her death, Sinead O’Connor still promised new songs a few weeks ago. They will never come.