Sinead O'Connor 1966 – 2023

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NOS News•
today, 19:48
•Adapted today, 21:32

Singer Sinéad O'Connor (56) died: 'She made no compromises'

Irish singer Sinéad O'Connor has died at the age of 56. Nothing has yet been announced about the cause of death. Her family reports to the Irish public broadcaster RTÉ, among others, that she has died. "It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of our beloved Sinéad. Her family and friends are devastated and ask for privacy at this difficult time."

The singer-songwriter from Dublin has released ten albums in her lifetime. She became best known with her version of Prince's Nothing Compares 2 U from 1990. The song was also her biggest hit in the Netherlands. It spent eight weeks at number one in the Top 40.



O'Connor leaves behind three children. Her then 17-year-old son Shane Lunny took his own life in January last year after a long struggle with mental problems. Last week she said on Twitter about her grief about this: "I have been living like an undead nocturnal animal ever since. He was the love of my life, the light of my soul. We were one soul of two parts," she wrote on Twitter.


Shane Lunny, Sinead O'Connor's 17 year old son took his own life in January 2022 after a long struggle with mental problems


Sinead O’Connor battled to help ‘beautiful’ son Shane with demons – as his dad Dónal Lunny struggled to see him in ‘tough’ lockdown

Because this topic has heavy content I have to take my responsibility and post this; The 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline (http://988lifeline.org/) is a 24-hour, toll-free, confidential suicide prevention hotline available to anyone in suicidal crisis or emotional distress. Are you thinking about suicide or are you worried about someone? Talking about suicide helps and can be done anonymously via chat on helplines. (http://988lifeline.org/)

Sinéad Marie Bernadette O'Connor came from a Catholic family in Dublin. When she was fifteen, she ended up in a strict Catholic shelter after she was caught shoplifting. Her singing talent was discovered here by a volunteer who introduced her to her brother Paul Byrne, who was the drummer for the Irish rock band In Tua Nua. She then founded her own band, drawing the attention of the music industry to herself.

O'Connor immediately made a big impression with her first album The Lion and the Cobra from 1987. The album sold about 2.5 million copies worldwide and was nominated for a prestigious Grammy Award. In the Netherlands, her debut single was Troy, which did well in the Top 40, but was not popular elsewhere in the world. A remix of the song was released in 2002 and became a huge hit on the dance charts in the United States.

After the success of The Lion and the Cobra, the singer released the album I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got in 1990 with Nothing Compares 2 U. It became her biggest hit in the United States, the United Kingdom and in many countries in Europe, including the Netherlands at number 1. The video also became iconic: it shows a long close-up of the singer in a black turtleneck while she sings the song intently.

Photo of the Pope


During a live performance on the American comedy program Saturday Night Live Sinead O'Connor tore up a photo of the Pope in protest against child abuse in the Catholic Church

The singer also became known for her sensational actions afterwards. She was nominated for four Grammy Awards in 1991, winning one of them, but refused to attend the ceremony. In a letter to the organization, she wrote that she felt "the commercial side of art is over-recognised".

A year later she gave a live performance on the American comedy program Saturday Night Live in which she tore up a photo of the Pope in protest against child abuse in the Catholic Church.

Many felt she sabotaged her career, but she was cold: "I killed the career they had planned for me. I screwed up the house in Antigua that the record company guys had in mind. I screwed up their career, not mine. It meant I had to keep performing live, but that's what I was born to do," she later responded.

Mental health

The artist, who suffered from bipolar disorder, has never made a secret of her own struggles with her mental health and troubled childhood. For example, she accused her mother of abuse, something she sang about in her song Fire on Babylon. She also spent years fighting child abuse.

O'Connor says she once shaved her head in protest against traditional views on women. It became her trademark, she later admitted: "I don't feel like myself if I haven't shaved my hair. So even if I'm an old woman, I'll have it that way."

Five years ago, O'Connor announced that she had converted to Islam and changed her name to Shuhada Sadaqat, although she continued to perform under the name Sinéad O'Connor. In 2021 she published the memoir Rememberings, in which she gave her own view on the tumultuous course of her singing career.

In Ireland and beyond, she caused another sensation in 2019 with a version of Nothing Compares 2 U, dressed in a red robe and a headscarf. On RTÉ's Late Late Show culture programme, she spoke of the difficult years she had had and emphasized that she was doing well now. There was immediate speculation on social media about a comeback.


Sinead O'Connor 'Nothing Compares 2 U' | The Late Late Show | RTE One



She was working on a new album again and was going to tour again, but it didn't come back to a comeback. Her early passing is widely mourned. "Her music was loved around the world and her talent was beyond compare," Irish Prime Minister Varadkar said. "Condolences to her family, her friends and everyone who loved her music."

Artists also react with sadness to O'Connor's death. British musician Tim Burgess, of The Charlatans, calls her "the epitome of the punk spirit". "She made no compromises and that made her life more difficult. I hope she has found peace." Irish comedian Dara O'Brian speaks of sad news. "Poor thing. I hope she knew how much love there was for her."

At the beginning of this year, Het Hour van de Wolf (NTR) broadcast the documentary Sinéad O'Connor - Nothing Compares, about how she grew into a worldwide pop star. The film can be viewed here.


Sinead O'Connor as a young artist

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BBC
www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-66318626





Sinead O'Connor



Shuhada' Sadaqat (previously Magda Davitt; born Sinéad Marie Bernadette O'Connor; 8 December 1966 – July 2023), known by her birth name, was an Irish singer and musician. Her debut studio album, The Lion and the Cobra, was released in 1987 and charted internationally. Her second studio album, I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got (1990), received glowing reviews upon release and became her biggest success, selling over seven million copies worldwide. Its lead single, "Nothing Compares 2 U" (written by Prince), was named the number one world single in 1990 by the Billboard Music Awards.

She released ten studio albums: 1992's Am I Not Your Girl? and 1994's Universal Mother both went gold in the UK, 2000's Faith and Courage received gold status in Australia, and 2005's Throw Down Your Arms went gold in Ireland. Her work also includes songs for films, collaborations with many other artists, and appearances at charity fundraising concerts. Her 2021 memoir Rememberings was a best seller.

Throughout her music career she had been unabashedly honest about her spiritual journey, activism, socio-political views, as well as her trauma and mental health struggles.

In 1999, she was ordained as a priest by the Latin Tridentine Church ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tridentine_Mass ), a sect that is not recognised by the mainstream Catholic Church. She consistently spoke out on issues related to child abuse, human rights, anti-racism, organised religion, and women's rights. In 2017, O'Connor changed her name to Magda Davitt. After converting to Islam in 2018, she changed it to Shuhada' Sadaqat. However, she continued to record and perform under her birth name.

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One of her most beautiful songs.

Thank You for Hearing Me

"Thank You For Hearing Me" is a song by Irish singer-songwriter Sinéad O'Connor, released in 1994 as the first single from her fourth album, Universal Mother (1994). Co-written by her with John Reynolds and based on her recent breakup with English art pop singer Peter Gabriel, they also co-produced it with English musician, composer and record producer Tim Simenon. It received positive reviews from music critics and was a sizeable hit in Europe. In Iceland, the song peaked at number five, and was a top 10 hit also in Poland, while it peaked at number 13 in the UK and number 14 in Scotland.




Lyrics
Thank you for hearing me
Thank you for hearing me
Thank you for hearing me
Thank you for hearing me
Thank you for loving me
Thank you for loving me
Thank you for loving me
Thank you for loving me
Thank you for seeing me
Thank you for seeing me
Thank you for seeing me
Thank you for seeing me
And for not leaving me
And for not leaving me
And for not leaving me
And for not leaving me
Thank you for staying with me
Thank you for staying with me
Thank you for staying with me
Thank you for staying with me
Thanks for not hurting me
Thanks for not hurting me
Thanks for not hurting me
Thanks for not hurting me
You are gentle with me
You are gentle with me
You are gentle with me
You are gentle with me
Thanks for silence with me
Thanks for silence with me
Thanks for silence with me
Thanks for silence with me
Thank you for holding me
And saying I could be
Thank you for saying "Baby"
Thank you for holding me
Thank you for helping me
Thank you for helping me
Thank you for helping me
Thank you, thank you for helping me
Thank you for breaking my heart
Thank you for tearing me apart
Now I'm a strong, strong heart
Thank you for breaking my heart

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[pieter]

Folks,

What a woman, what a life, what a career, and one of a kind. She was a hurt soul whom was abused as a child and a young girl. She didn't got comfort, nor protection nor support as a child and teenager, and that made her whom she would become as an adult. There must have been a lot of rage and courage inside her. I have to admid that I wasn't a fan of her songs and music as a child, but can't deny her talent and the quality of her voice. She might have insulted Roman Catholics, walked on a thin line of boundaries, and was critical of an Ireland and Irish society which was totally controled by the Catholic church and Catholicism. So that resistance and personal fight of her I can see in her Irish context of the Island which Ireland is. This is Freedom and this is the West, she tore apart that image of the Pope, she criticised patriarchy, theocracy, theology, and the way she had to look as a young women.

I said this is the West, because after Sinead O'Connor tore apart the image of Pope John Paul II no Poles went on the street to burn Irish flags, beat up Irish citizens or kill people or blow up concert halls or train stations or Airports. No Bishops nor the Pope issued a Fatwah against Sinead O'Connor.

There were protests, death threats, cancelled gigs and even a bulldozer used to flatten a pile of her records in Times Square. But not the extreme reaction of Islamist terrorists after the 2012 cartoons depicting Muhammad in the French satirical weekly magazine Charlie Hebdo'

What a tough childhood, difficult life and stil what did she make out of it with her music.

Other people in her position would have commited Suicide, would have died of a drugs overdose or would have ended in a mental institution. She was a representative of Irish music, Ireland, Irish Republicanism (she supported the Irish republican, Left-wing nationalist and Democratic Socialist Sinn Féin party, which was the political arm of the revolutionary paramilitary organisation and terrorist organisation, the Irish Republican Army (1919–1922), and Islam.


Sinn Fein supporters sing as they hold an Irish flag during the Dublin City count in Dublin, Ireland, on Feb. 9, 2020. Ben Stansall/AFP/Getty Images

Pieter

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[karl]

Pieter

having only met just a very few Irish {homeland Irish}, they were very friendly people and easy to speak with. Unfortunately, I simply do not remember her music, still non-the-less, it is a shame this artist should pass away at her reasonable age.

Karl