Sinéad O’Connor, acclaimed Dublin singer, dies aged 56

July 26, 2023 11:08 AM

Irish singer Sinéad O’Connor has died at the age of 56. The acclaimed Dublin performer released 10 studio albums, while her song Nothing Compares 2 U was named the number one world single in 1990 by the Billboard Music Awards. Ms O’Connor was presented with the inaugural award for Classic Irish Album at the RTÉ Choice Music Awards earlier this year. The singer received a standing ovation as she dedicated the award, for I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got, to “each and every member of Ireland’s refugee community”.

Sinéad previously on MeFi

posted by roolya_boolya (352 comments total)

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posted by roolya_boolya at 11:09 AM on July 26, 2023 [16 favorites]

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posted by lefty lucky cat at 11:11 AM on July 26, 2023

I hope she finds peace.
posted by Capt. Renault at 11:11 AM on July 26, 2023 [35 favorites]

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posted by Saxon Kane at 11:16 AM on July 26, 2023

It's worth remembering that she tried to make us see the horrors the Church was hiding - and we destroyed her for it.

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posted by NoxAeternum at 11:16 AM on July 26, 2023 [177 favorites]

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posted by lord_wolf at 11:19 AM on July 26, 2023

Slán, Agus Beannacht de leath.
posted by fight or flight at 11:19 AM on July 26, 2023 [9 favorites]

I had listened this You're Wrong About podcast episode about Sinead recently and it cleared up some questions in my mind. Recommended: https://open.spotify.com/episode/265qKOV5C7XBqlyXMjp7VF
posted by SNACKeR at 11:19 AM on July 26, 2023 [34 favorites]

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Nothing compared to her
posted by hangashore at 11:20 AM on July 26, 2023 [60 favorites]

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posted by anhedonic at 11:20 AM on July 26, 2023

Hard to think of an artist whose work and life were more meaningful to me. This is devastating. I hope she's at peace.
posted by Mavri at 11:20 AM on July 26, 2023 [14 favorites]

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Sad news for music. And although technically it wasn’t her song as it was written and first performed by Prince, her cover of Nothing Compares 2U is the one everyone remembers.
posted by interogative mood at 11:20 AM on July 26, 2023 [5 favorites]

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Fight the real enemy
posted by lalochezia at 11:21 AM on July 26, 2023 [18 favorites]

Also note (per wikipedia): she changed her name to Shuhada' Sadaqat when she converted to Islam ( and was previously Magda Davitt; born Sinéad Marie Bernadette O'Connor )
posted by lalochezia at 11:22 AM on July 26, 2023 [19 favorites]

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posted by mirthe at 11:22 AM on July 26, 2023

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posted by Joey Michaels at 11:22 AM on July 26, 2023

I loved her and I am very sad. I was listening to her in my truck just a few hours ago. I will always be grateful for Emperor's New Clothes and No Man's Woman.
posted by Rhedyn at 11:23 AM on July 26, 2023 [7 favorites]

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posted by glaucon at 11:23 AM on July 26, 2023 [1 favorite]

Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck. That is not the news I wanted to hear today. Fuck.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 11:23 AM on July 26, 2023 [5 favorites]

I think Black Boys on Mopeds did more to radicalize me than like Dead Kennedys or whatever else I was listening to back then. RIP.
posted by rodlymight at 11:23 AM on July 26, 2023 [64 favorites]

Wow. I'm shocked. She was so young. I know she'd been having a tough time lately. She will be missed. She said and did some important things and was an enormous talent.

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posted by biscotti at 11:23 AM on July 26, 2023 [1 favorite]

How sad, I always hoped for her that she would find some happiness in life.

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posted by mumimor at 11:23 AM on July 26, 2023 [10 favorites]

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posted by /\/\/\/ at 11:24 AM on July 26, 2023

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posted by Mister Moofoo at 11:25 AM on July 26, 2023

Codladh sámh a stor

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posted by bolix at 11:25 AM on July 26, 2023 [7 favorites]

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posted by martin q blank at 11:31 AM on July 26, 2023

She held her convictions so well. In the face of so much. I hope she knew, in the end, how much she meant to so very may.

I *know* that more than a few young people are going to be emboldened by what they learn about her over the next few days and weeks.

💔
posted by DigDoug at 11:31 AM on July 26, 2023 [26 favorites]

I remember she disappeared for quite a while after the SNL moment, and when she resurfaced it was for the Red Hot + Blue AIDS benefit album performing Cole Porter's You Do Something To Me. It meant a lot to me that she reappeared on that release.

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posted by hippybear at 11:31 AM on July 26, 2023 [33 favorites]

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posted by drewbage1847 at 11:32 AM on July 26, 2023

So sad, I was hoping she was doing better. May she rest in peace

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posted by bitteschoen at 11:32 AM on July 26, 2023 [6 favorites]

Absolutely heartrending. I’m speechless.

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posted by Ten Cold Hot Dogs at 11:33 AM on July 26, 2023 [1 favorite]

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posted by oozy rat in a sanitary zoo at 11:34 AM on July 26, 2023

She will always have a huge place in my heart and soul and memories. RIP. The world barely deserved you.
posted by tarantula at 11:34 AM on July 26, 2023 [10 favorites]

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posted by tomsk at 11:35 AM on July 26, 2023

This is heartbreaking. She struggled so much throughout her entire life. I hope she’s at peace now.

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posted by MexicanYenta at 11:35 AM on July 26, 2023 [3 favorites]

The song How About I Be Me (and You Be You)? caught my attention when it came out in 2018 (I liked it a lot), and I remember laughing when I read an interview with Sinead and she said that she'd thought of calling it "How About I Be Me (and You Fuck Off)?".

It's a solace that her struggles are over, but I will miss her.

💔

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posted by virago at 11:37 AM on July 26, 2023 [27 favorites]

She was a warrior for human rights and a constant advocate for the marginalised in society. She paid a high price but she never lost her convictions. In addition to being one of the finest singers of our time, she was also a pivotal figure in pushing for a much needed reckoning with some of the shameful parts of Irish society.

RTÉ news announcement of her passing has a nice resume of both her political and musical career.
posted by roolya_boolya at 11:37 AM on July 26, 2023 [24 favorites]

I hope whatever she finds in the afterlife is kinder than the face of God the Catholic Church showed her during life.

I'd forgotten she was a former Magdalene Laundries inmate.
posted by praemunire at 11:38 AM on July 26, 2023 [29 favorites]

Ní Bheidh A Leithéid Arís Ann.
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posted by ppl at 11:40 AM on July 26, 2023 [5 favorites]

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posted by dlugoczaj at 11:41 AM on July 26, 2023

She deserved so much better, all along.

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posted by Lyn Never at 11:41 AM on July 26, 2023 [14 favorites]

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posted by TwoStride at 11:48 AM on July 26, 2023

here she is in the early 90s singing Danny Boy

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PweUGhCZNiM
posted by web5.0 at 11:48 AM on July 26, 2023 [7 favorites]

In the words of Kris Kristofferson to Sinead after she was booed while onstage at Bob Dylan’s birthday concert, “Don’t let the bastards get you down!”
posted by MexicanYenta at 11:48 AM on July 26, 2023 [37 favorites]

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An extraordinary artist, absolutely ahead of her time. She deserved so much better.
posted by Countess Elena at 11:49 AM on July 26, 2023 [6 favorites]

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posted by gc at 11:51 AM on July 26, 2023

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posted by GenjiandProust at 11:51 AM on July 26, 2023

Beautifully written extract from her biography published in the Irish Times last year.
posted by roolya_boolya at 11:52 AM on July 26, 2023 [12 favorites]

Speaking of Sinead and Dylan, this performance of her covering Dylan's "I Believe in You" is fantastic. Such a powerful voice. What a loss.
posted by downtohisturtles at 11:52 AM on July 26, 2023 [3 favorites]

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posted by detachd at 11:52 AM on July 26, 2023

GOD: [Calls Sinéad home]
SINÉAD: [Punches God in the dick]
posted by Sauce Trough at 11:53 AM on July 26, 2023 [95 favorites]

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posted by key_of_z at 11:54 AM on July 26, 2023

I don't know the source, but I saw a screengrab of an interview where she said: "'Oh, you fucked up your career' but they're talking about the career they had in mind for me. I fucked up the house in Antigua that the record company dudes wanted to buy. I fucked up their career, not mine. It meant I had to make my living playing live, and I am born for live performance."

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posted by Etrigan at 11:56 AM on July 26, 2023 [103 favorites]

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posted by Multicellular Exothermic at 11:59 AM on July 26, 2023

Such a sad loss.

I highly recommend the documentary about her, Nothing Compares; I believe it was produced by her ex-husband (among others) and really shed light on everything she went through (though it was finished before her son's death, so didn't include that final blow to her).
posted by carrienation at 12:00 PM on July 26, 2023 [9 favorites]

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posted by rude.boy at 12:00 PM on July 26, 2023

It was from the Guardian, in 2021:

She’s probably still most famous for ripping up the picture of John Paul II. Has that defined her career? “Yes, in a beautiful fucking way. There was no doubt about who this bitch is. There was no more mistaking this woman for a pop star. But it was not derailing; people say, ‘Oh, you fucked up your career’ but they’re talking about the career they had in mind for me. I fucked up the house in Antigua that the record company dudes wanted to buy. I fucked up their career, not mine.

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posted by Glegrinof the Pig-Man at 12:00 PM on July 26, 2023 [77 favorites]

I also just heard about her on the "You're Wrong About" podcast, and, when the blanks had been filled in about what she'd done the last couple of decades, I realized I never knew a tenth of what she was about.

Yes, she seems to have struggled to find her way, but she always seemed to be moving with purpose -- even if that purpose changed.

And the way she sang that Cole Porter song made me think she had missed an entire other career as a torch singer.
posted by wenestvedt at 12:02 PM on July 26, 2023 [10 favorites]

A nice little anecdote from Jeffrey St. Clair, editor at CounterPunch:

[copied-and-pasted from twitter]

About 8 years ago, an irate Sinead O'Connor rang up the CounterPunch office and threatened to sue us over a piece we'd run. Becky sensibly gave her my number. I was walking the dog when my iPhone buzzed. "This is Sinead." "Sinead who?" I inquired.

"Who the fuck do you think, asshole!"
"Oh, O'Connor," I muttered. As if there could be any other. It turns out this was the beginning of a fraught but beautiful relationship. I let her unload on us for about 40 minutes and then said, "Why don't you write that up for us?"

"You want me to write for you?"
"Absolutely," I said.
"Thank you, thank you! Nobody's ever responded that way to one of my calls before," she said. And she did.
Over the next few months we got a few pieces from her that were funny and smart and wicked.

posted by Atom Eyes at 12:03 PM on July 26, 2023 [111 favorites]

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posted by St. Oops at 12:04 PM on July 26, 2023

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posted by potrzebie at 12:04 PM on July 26, 2023

With tears hot and wild
For the loss of a girl
That I loved as a child

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posted by gwint at 12:04 PM on July 26, 2023 [18 favorites]

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posted by The Vice Admiral of the Narrow Seas at 12:05 PM on July 26, 2023

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posted by They sucked his brains out! at 12:06 PM on July 26, 2023

Ah, damn. She was looking like becoming a marvelous crone in not too much longer. But she gave so much, so powerfully, in so brief a time.
posted by EvaDestruction at 12:08 PM on July 26, 2023 [16 favorites]

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I'm gutted. I must have listened to 'i do not want what i haven't got' and 'the Lion and the Cobra' on repeat literally thousands of times each.

I hope she found peace, she's already missed.
posted by schyler523 at 12:08 PM on July 26, 2023 [14 favorites]

I saw her sing live once. She was amazing. May she be finally at peace.

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posted by theBigRedKittyPurrs at 12:09 PM on July 26, 2023 [5 favorites]

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posted by smcdow at 12:09 PM on July 26, 2023

Sinéad played the Virgin Mary (or a hallucination thereof) in Neil Jordan's The Butcher Boy and looked so angelic doing it that it hardly seemed fair to Mary.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 12:12 PM on July 26, 2023 [14 favorites]

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posted by Laura in Canada at 12:12 PM on July 26, 2023

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And fuck Joe Pesci.
posted by Pendragon at 12:14 PM on July 26, 2023 [36 favorites]

With the Chieftains: The Foggy, Foggy Dew.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 12:14 PM on July 26, 2023 [17 favorites]

Just talking with my wife over lunch about this and we both put Sinead at the head table of "Women We Did Wrong"
posted by drewbage1847 at 12:14 PM on July 26, 2023 [16 favorites]

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posted by wicked_sassy at 12:14 PM on July 26, 2023

This is very sad news. I remember being so taken with the article I posted here a couple of years ago. It gave so much of her story than I had previously known.

She was very courageous to speak out about the things she spoke out about—sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, the Magdalene Laundries—especially because of how much criticism and abuse she received for doing so. She is literally the first person I remember talking publicly about Catholic Church abuses.

Not to mention, she was obviously an amazing singer. My playlists have “Nothing Compares 2 U” on heavy rotation, and it’s still as amazing as it was the first time I heard it.

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posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 12:15 PM on July 26, 2023 [17 favorites]

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posted by gentlyepigrams at 12:16 PM on July 26, 2023

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Truly made some of the best songs recorded in our lifetime.
posted by kensington314 at 12:18 PM on July 26, 2023 [4 favorites]

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And thank you for showing me the way.
posted by minervous at 12:19 PM on July 26, 2023 [1 favorite]

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posted by Bottlecap at 12:20 PM on July 26, 2023

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some spirits shine brighter, stronger, and help the rest of us see in this darkness

my god this loss is hard
posted by elkevelvet at 12:22 PM on July 26, 2023 [6 favorites]

I'm ugly crying in a way I haven't since Carrie Fisher and I can't even explain it even if I had the words.

Ahead of her time and she suffered for it. Thank you for sharing your journey with us, especially when it was hard.

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posted by ApathyGirl at 12:25 PM on July 26, 2023 [26 favorites]

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posted by sudasana at 12:28 PM on July 26, 2023

Oh my god, this is so shocking to see. “I Am Stretched on Your Grave” was one of those life-changing songs you hear from time to time that influence everything you hear afterwards. 💔
posted by kitten kaboodle at 12:29 PM on July 26, 2023 [16 favorites]

I had no idea how young she was. Very sad news.
posted by obfuscation at 12:31 PM on July 26, 2023

She was fuckin' fierce.
posted by wenestvedt at 12:34 PM on July 26, 2023 [20 favorites]

I hadn't realized her teenage son had committed suicide just last year. What a tough time for her other three kids.

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posted by nobody at 12:34 PM on July 26, 2023 [8 favorites]

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posted by mike3k at 12:36 PM on July 26, 2023

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posted by alicat at 12:36 PM on July 26, 2023

I was a young, still-Catholic girl when she ripped that photo and though I found it shocking, I think it was the most instantly radicalizing moment I have experienced. I think about Black Boys on Mopeds or I Am Stretched on Your Grave so often even now. She was right, she was right, she was right.
posted by Il etait une fois at 12:37 PM on July 26, 2023 [60 favorites]

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posted by ivanthenotsoterrible at 12:38 PM on July 26, 2023

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posted by meinvt at 12:39 PM on July 26, 2023

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posted by kinnakeet at 12:39 PM on July 26, 2023

I was a young, still-Catholic girl when she ripped that photo

I don't get it... she was 2 years older than me, and I remember that I was also just a boy when that happened. She was famous so young, goodness gracious. Poor thing, hope she is in peace now.
posted by Meatbomb at 12:41 PM on July 26, 2023 [7 favorites]

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posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 12:41 PM on July 26, 2023

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posted by tdismukes at 12:42 PM on July 26, 2023

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posted by edd at 12:43 PM on July 26, 2023

Her autobiography is a survey of personal damage that can be a rough read.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 12:43 PM on July 26, 2023 [7 favorites]

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posted by tangosnail at 12:46 PM on July 26, 2023

God, we used to be terrible people.
posted by Keith Talent at 12:46 PM on July 26, 2023 [1 favorite]

Decades ahead of her time in so many ways. Rest in peace
posted by TheShadowKnows at 12:47 PM on July 26, 2023 [3 favorites]

God, we used to be terrible people.

We still are, but we used to be, too..
- with apologies to M.H.
posted by Nerd of the North at 12:48 PM on July 26, 2023 [38 favorites]

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posted by leahneukirchen at 12:50 PM on July 26, 2023

One of those artists who I don't think ever got it wrong, never pandered, sold their talent short.

Heroine was the first time I heard her voice and she had me immediately. Some years later I stumbled into her set at Lollapalooza (it's a long story) and she had me again. Stole the damned show. Pretty sure Famine was the opener.



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posted by philip-random at 12:50 PM on July 26, 2023 [3 favorites]

Oh no ... Rest in Peace .
posted by AnyUsernameWillDo at 12:50 PM on July 26, 2023 [1 favorite]

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posted by Silvery Fish at 12:54 PM on July 26, 2023

A month after Bowie's death, she did this remarkable cover of "Life on Mars" here in Chicago.
posted by carrienation at 12:58 PM on July 26, 2023 [27 favorites]

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posted by spanner rash at 1:00 PM on July 26, 2023

Wow, this one hits hard.

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posted by hydra77 at 1:01 PM on July 26, 2023 [2 favorites]

I know she had little use for convention and predictability, but I’d have so loved to see her reach a nice, ordinary old age.

She’d have made it shockingly, boldly her own, as she did with everything. I’m so sorry we’ll miss that.

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posted by armeowda at 1:01 PM on July 26, 2023 [26 favorites]

This is really sad news.
posted by Dip Flash at 1:02 PM on July 26, 2023 [1 favorite]

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posted by treepour at 1:05 PM on July 26, 2023

I'm dancing the seven veils
Want you to pick up my scarf
See how the black moon fades
Soon I can give you my heart
I don't know no shame
I feel no pain
I can't see the flame
But I do know Man-din-ka
posted by kirkaracha at 1:07 PM on July 26, 2023 [15 favorites]

I can think of no other voice from my generation so capable, so powerful, so tender.
Safe travels Sinéad.
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posted by BigHeartedGuy at 1:07 PM on July 26, 2023 [8 favorites]

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posted by heyho at 1:11 PM on July 26, 2023

While driving to work I play various mixed CDs, and lodged between some punk, rock, and other classics is Troy. Decades after first hearing it it still amazes, like so much of what she did. It comes on directly after Fuck You by Vancouver's immortal Subhumans and they fit together perfectly.
No one, and I mean no one, should have had to deal with what she did, for being brave, true, and right.
This is just awful and may she go with grace.

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posted by Phlegmco(tm) at 1:13 PM on July 26, 2023 [7 favorites]

I didn't know till just now that she had reverted to Islam.

إِنَّا لِلّهِ وَإِنَّـا إِلَيْهِ رَاجِعونَ

Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raajioon

Indeed we belong to Allah , and indeed to Him we will return.

Surah Al-Baqarah 2:156
posted by rabia.elizabeth at 1:14 PM on July 26, 2023 [25 favorites]

I assume you mean “converted” and not “reverted.”
posted by argybarg at 1:15 PM on July 26, 2023 [1 favorite]

@argybarg: no I don't. We Muslims use "revert" because we believe that by professing Islam we revert to the state in which we were born.
posted by rabia.elizabeth at 1:20 PM on July 26, 2023 [79 favorites]

For thirty years every headline with her name in it has been practice for this day, and it's still a kick in the stomach.
We treated her so terribly and she was right all the time.
posted by Iteki at 1:22 PM on July 26, 2023 [14 favorites]

Thank you for breaking my heart
Thank you for tearing me apart
Now I've a strong, strong heart
Thank you for breaking my heart

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posted by Senescence at 1:25 PM on July 26, 2023 [6 favorites]

I wonder if there's a term for what it means or is to die while the world owes you an apology.

I wonder what it means to let somebody die without offering them contrition you know you owe them.
posted by mhoye at 1:26 PM on July 26, 2023 [23 favorites]

Oh my God no!

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posted by riverlife at 1:26 PM on July 26, 2023 [1 favorite]

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posted by andraste at 1:27 PM on July 26, 2023

She was right.
posted by vibrotronica at 1:31 PM on July 26, 2023 [9 favorites]

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posted by JohnFromGR at 1:32 PM on July 26, 2023

Oh, how I loved her! My heart is broken!

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posted by little mouth at 1:32 PM on July 26, 2023 [5 favorites]

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posted by Sphinx at 1:33 PM on July 26, 2023

This one left me breathless.


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posted by thivaia at 1:34 PM on July 26, 2023 [2 favorites]

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posted by spinifex23 at 1:35 PM on July 26, 2023

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posted by Splunge at 1:37 PM on July 26, 2023

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posted by Ignorantsavage at 1:41 PM on July 26, 2023

I'll always think of her performing on SNL - not the famous time, but the previous time where she delivered stellar versions of Black Boys on Mopeds and Last Day of Our Acquaintance.

And in case anyone hasn't heard it, the Push Remix of Troy.
posted by Candleman at 1:41 PM on July 26, 2023 [4 favorites]

GOD: [Calls Sinéad home]
SINÉAD: [Punches God in the dick]

I’m not sure she ever had a problem with God, as opposed to God’s self-appointed spokespeople.
posted by GenjiandProust at 1:41 PM on July 26, 2023 [37 favorites]

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posted by jabo at 1:41 PM on July 26, 2023

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posted by pangolin party at 1:42 PM on July 26, 2023

I have to correct myself.

"How About I Be You (and You Be Me)?" was both an album and a song, it came out in 2012, not 2018 (never use YouTube as your single source of information, friends), and Sinead's exact words, to Carl Williott of MTV News in between songs at the Highline Ballroom in NYC, were:

"I really wanted to call [the new album] How About I Be Me (And You Fuck Off)?" Among the laughter she whispered, "But, that wouldn't be very nice."

Thinking of Sinead on stage, whispering, makes me want to hug her.
posted by virago at 1:43 PM on July 26, 2023 [9 favorites]

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posted by Thorzdad at 1:43 PM on July 26, 2023

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posted by The Nutmeg of Consolation at 1:45 PM on July 26, 2023

One of my all-time favorite concerts was a show she did in an Icelandic church back in 2011. I wrote a review of it back then (since saved from oblivion by a fan site). I don’t like quoting myself, as a rule, but I don’t have much to add to my opening paragraph:

No matter how often I see videos of Sinéad O’Connor in recent years the first image that comes to mind when I think of her is when she faced down a stadium full of people booing her at a Bob Dylan tribute concert. This was after she had ripped up a picture of Pope John Paul II in protest against child abuse aided and abetted by the Catholic Church. She came onstage to sing Dylan’s I Believe in You, but told the musicians to stop when it was clear that the booing was not stopping. So she shouted Bob Marley’s War. I was 11 years old when I watched it on television. I did not know much about Sinéad O’Connor, let alone how child abuse had been covered up by the Catholic Church. All I knew was that a young woman had faced down a host of jeering fools and come out on top. She embodied the exemplary artist, facing the idiocy of society and shouting the truth into the din of nonsense. It needs to be said, Sinéad O’Connor was right, and all the idiots who tried to shout her down were wrong. In fact, when I came home from the show to write my review, I checked a news-site and the top story was about a Catholic bishop in the US who had been indicted on charges of covering up child abuse.

What an amazing body of work she leaves behind.
posted by Kattullus at 1:46 PM on July 26, 2023 [48 favorites]

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posted by eirias at 1:49 PM on July 26, 2023

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posted by desuetude at 1:53 PM on July 26, 2023

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posted by wigner3j at 1:54 PM on July 26, 2023

She sang the opening theme for the new season of Outlander and literally every week, my partner and I would just look at each other and say, "Holy shit."

Sing me a song of a lass that is gone
Say, could that lass be I?
Merry of soul, she sailed on a day
Over the sea to Skye
Billow and breeze, islands and seas
Mountains of rain and sun (mountains of rain and sun)
All that was good, all that was fair
All that was me is gone
Sing me a song of a lass that is gone
Say, could that lass be I?
Merry of soul, she sailed n a day
Over the sea to Skye

posted by DirtyOldTown at 2:04 PM on July 26, 2023 [22 favorites]

BP Fallon said in an interview on RTÉ News that there is an unreleased album waiting to come out produced by David Holmes, which he has heard. He said it's 'fantastic' and a 'brilliant record'.
posted by roolya_boolya at 2:07 PM on July 26, 2023 [11 favorites]

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posted by farlukar at 2:07 PM on July 26, 2023

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posted by maddieD at 2:11 PM on July 26, 2023

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posted by Capybara at 2:15 PM on July 26, 2023

I didn't realize they redid the opening themes, and I don't follow the show, so thanks for sharing that.
posted by PussKillian at 2:18 PM on July 26, 2023 [1 favorite]

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posted by Faint of Butt at 2:18 PM on July 26, 2023

Just talking with my wife over lunch about this and we both put Sinead at the head table of "Women We Did Wrong"

Big table. Good company.
posted by roolya_boolya at 2:23 PM on July 26, 2023 [17 favorites]

At the time of the SNL incident a family friend said :"they're doing to her what they did to Lenny Bruce"

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posted by brujita at 2:24 PM on July 26, 2023 [8 favorites]

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posted by chimpsonfilm at 2:35 PM on July 26, 2023

Here is a lovely cover of Buckley's "Song to the Siren". The way she uses her voice to conjure the story is magical. Goodbye lovely one. Song to the Siren
posted by effluvia at 2:35 PM on July 26, 2023 [12 favorites]

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posted by genehack at 2:35 PM on July 26, 2023

Thanks, big sis. For defending us against those priests
posted by eustatic at 2:37 PM on July 26, 2023 [13 favorites]

💔
posted by rjs at 2:38 PM on July 26, 2023

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posted by From Bklyn at 2:39 PM on July 26, 2023

Big ol' dot.

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posted by delfin at 2:42 PM on July 26, 2023

Irish Times obituary and photo tribute.
posted by roolya_boolya at 2:45 PM on July 26, 2023 [4 favorites]

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posted by crepesofwrath at 2:48 PM on July 26, 2023

In This Heart will always be my favorite of her tracks. I hope she finds peace.
posted by xedrik at 2:49 PM on July 26, 2023 [7 favorites]

Well that sucks.
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posted by spitbull at 2:50 PM on July 26, 2023

Here is a lovely cover of Buckley's "Song to the Siren".

Hearing Sinéad sing the words of the siren, lovingly luring us to the sweet comfort of death, may be too soon forever.
posted by The Tensor at 2:52 PM on July 26, 2023 [5 favorites]

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She could sure do heartbreaking but love the joyousness of “4th and vine”.
posted by rongorongo at 2:52 PM on July 26, 2023 [2 favorites]

Shocked to hear the news.

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posted by May Kasahara at 2:57 PM on July 26, 2023

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posted by brambleboy at 2:59 PM on July 26, 2023

🎶
posted by ChrisR at 3:00 PM on July 26, 2023

Another recent listener to You're Wrong About -- thanks to an AskMe about intelligent podcasts, actually -- and listened to that episode specifically because I always thought she got a raw deal and we should all collectively apologize and feel bad.

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posted by Shepherd at 3:00 PM on July 26, 2023 [5 favorites]

O’Connor wrote in her memoir that she visited her mother’s home after her death and “took down from her bedroom wall the only photo she ever had up there, which was of Pope John Paul II.”
She says she kept the photo with her for years. “I never knew when or where or how I would destroy it, but destroy it I would when the right moment came”.
posted by Lanark at 3:03 PM on July 26, 2023 [50 favorites]

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posted by ltl at 3:11 PM on July 26, 2023

I’m not sure she ever had a problem with God, as opposed to God’s self-appointed spokespeople.

Indeed.

Jah help us to be forgiving
The teachers are representing you
So badly, that not many can see you

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posted by rpophessagr at 3:15 PM on July 26, 2023 [4 favorites]

I remember she disappeared for quite a while after the SNL moment, and when she resurfaced it was for the Red Hot + Blue AIDS benefit album performing Cole Porter's You Do Something To Me. It meant a lot to me that she reappeared on that release.

Thank you for reminding me of this song. It was the first song that my wife and I danced to at our wedding.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 3:20 PM on July 26, 2023 [7 favorites]

. Oh, my heart. She was amazing.
posted by but no cigar at 3:21 PM on July 26, 2023 [1 favorite]

Il etait une fois: "She was right, she was right, she was right."

QFT.

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posted by signal at 3:33 PM on July 26, 2023

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posted by Namshub at 3:40 PM on July 26, 2023

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posted by JoeXIII007 at 3:43 PM on July 26, 2023

I saw her live with the Chieftains in Maryland, and I didn't realize until after what a rare and fortunate ticket that was.They were warm and funny together onstage, but their rendition of Babylon was a scorcher.

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posted by newdaddy at 3:44 PM on July 26, 2023 [11 favorites]

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How did she die?

Who will pick up the torch?
posted by rebent at 3:45 PM on July 26, 2023

The detail from the BP Fallon interview that roolya-boolya linked, that she gave a good hug, is unsurprising on reflection, delightful, and comforting to hear about. This one is hitting me, in a way that celebrity deaths generally do not.

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posted by eviemath at 3:45 PM on July 26, 2023 [11 favorites]

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posted by Samarium at 3:52 PM on July 26, 2023

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posted by Pouteria at 3:57 PM on July 26, 2023

How did she die?

I haven’t seen anything one way or another, and I haven’t followed her life closely but did watch the recent doc about her a few months ago. She had a potentially fatal long-term illness (bipolar), at one point wrote a song about contemplating suicide (8 Good Reasons - obvious content warning should anyone go searching for it; list of suicide crisis lines in various countries), and had a very significant personal tragedy in the death of her son last year that reports indicate was quite a blow to her mental health. Given she was only 56, that seems likely relevant?
posted by eviemath at 4:06 PM on July 26, 2023 [6 favorites]

Very sad about this. I looked up to her and thought she was so courageous and intelligent and poetic.

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posted by ugf at 4:16 PM on July 26, 2023 [1 favorite]

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posted by maggiemaggie at 4:25 PM on July 26, 2023

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posted by equalpants at 4:26 PM on July 26, 2023

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I wasn't crying until I read this thread, but she was an incredibly important artist to me, and now I'm ugly-crying.

It's the world's loss too.
posted by verbminx at 4:39 PM on July 26, 2023 [11 favorites]

Given she was only 56, that seems likely relevant?

I assume more information will come out sooner or later, but whenever it is someone young and the cause is carefully not given, there are usually only a couple of go-to assumptions.
posted by Dip Flash at 4:39 PM on July 26, 2023 [3 favorites]

I'm heartbroken. I've been afraid for her for years, since the SNL performance... perhaps the terrible loss of her son last year was more than she could bear.

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posted by jokeefe at 4:48 PM on July 26, 2023 [4 favorites]

"Everyone wants a pop star, see? But I am a protest singer." - from her 2021 memoir

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posted by the primroses were over at 5:07 PM on July 26, 2023 [15 favorites]

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posted by kmartino at 5:15 PM on July 26, 2023

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posted by foleypt at 5:18 PM on July 26, 2023

Such a unique talent, and such a powerful voice. There was something so haunting to how her voice would swoop - I had The Lion and the Cobra on repeat for months when it came out. You can’t unhear her.

Another recommendation to listen to the You’re Wrong About episode about her if you have the time.
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posted by Mchelly at 5:24 PM on July 26, 2023 [5 favorites]

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posted by sillygwailo at 5:28 PM on July 26, 2023

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posted by Buntix at 5:29 PM on July 26, 2023

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posted by cultcargo at 5:30 PM on July 26, 2023

Playing her music for my daughter to explain why I am crying. Safe travels and peace to her loved ones.
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 5:37 PM on July 26, 2023 [7 favorites]

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posted by gingerbeer at 5:37 PM on July 26, 2023

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posted by dragonplayer at 5:40 PM on July 26, 2023

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posted by buffalo at 5:50 PM on July 26, 2023

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posted by Snowflake at 5:52 PM on July 26, 2023

I've never been a fan of her music.
I've always been a fan of her commitment to her beliefs, her willingness to stand up and demand justice for those wronged.
and I didn't expect this. Like many of my hero's, I didn't think that she might someday die.
Fuck
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posted by evilDoug at 5:55 PM on July 26, 2023 [9 favorites]

She was so great. I remember being a teenager in the 80s and having had the Sex Pistols and The Cure change what I thought rock could be about in quick succession (I finished 9th grade in ‘89). I still clearly remember the line about how “a pregnancy can change you” in Emperor’s New Clothes and being, like, “a WHAT?” and just really having my notion of rock blown wide open and my whole notion of women blown right open all at once. She was only 8 years older than me.

So many songs hitting so hard today. Nothing Compares to You, The Last Day of Our Acquaintance, You Cause as Much Sorrow. She did so many songs that get sadder after her death. She was a true hero.
posted by snofoam at 5:55 PM on July 26, 2023 [11 favorites]

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posted by mersen at 6:05 PM on July 26, 2023

“ last day of our acquaintance” is one of the few songs that stops me in my tracks, and makes me feel the exact feeling of my divorce, but carried on one of the most beautiful voices ever heard. Her songs have held my hand through a lot of tough times.

I’ve kept her songs in my playlist for years, and every time something of hers comes on. I just stop, and listen , and feel.

She was beautiful, and strong, and the world did her wrong.
Gonna go drink, and listen, and cry a bit.
posted by das_2099 at 6:15 PM on July 26, 2023 [12 favorites]

She'll be forever the thief of our hearts.
posted by myopicman at 6:22 PM on July 26, 2023 [3 favorites]

O’Connor wrote in her memoir that she visited her mother’s home after her death and “took down from her bedroom wall the only photo she ever had up there, which was of Pope John Paul II.”
She says she kept the photo with her for years. “I never knew when or where or how I would destroy it, but destroy it I would when the right moment came”.

I was going to mention this. I’m hugely sentimental about things and I learned today that this was the photo she destroyed on SNL.

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posted by bendy at 6:26 PM on July 26, 2023 [28 favorites]

the loneliest people were the ones who always spoke the truth
posted by any major dude at 6:46 PM on July 26, 2023 [12 favorites]

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posted by needmorecoffee at 6:50 PM on July 26, 2023

Among her other accomplishments, she recorded my absolute favorite version of The Parting Glass.

Oh, all the comrades e'er I had, they're sorry for my going away.
And all the sweethearts e'er I had, they'd wish me one more day to stay.
But since it falls unto my lot, that I should rise and you should not,
I gently rise and softly call, Goodnight and joy be to you all.

Rest in peace, Chiquitita.
posted by corey flood at 6:51 PM on July 26, 2023 [9 favorites]

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posted by rmd1023 at 7:07 PM on July 26, 2023

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posted by rhiannonstone at 7:15 PM on July 26, 2023

There was a time that I had cassettes of her first two albums playing on repeat for months. I wish she could have stayed in this world with us. Rest in peace.
posted by pernoctalian at 7:19 PM on July 26, 2023 [5 favorites]

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posted by the sobsister at 7:21 PM on July 26, 2023

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posted by Rapunzel1111 at 7:32 PM on July 26, 2023

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posted by Mitheral at 7:56 PM on July 26, 2023

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posted by rosary at 8:05 PM on July 26, 2023

I've spent a bit of time today thinking about her and listening to her music. I've also been thinking about the friend who introduced me to her music - someone I lost to suicide around ten years ago (could it really have been that long ago?)

Earlier this week we were discussing the recent and very problematic song by American "country" music star Jason Aldean and it couldn't be clearer to me that between these two very different musicians one used her gifts and the fame it brought her to try to make the world a more just and welcoming place and the other has different priorities. Perhaps her success in that regard was limited but she was unquestionably sincere in her efforts and during her lifetime she moved the needle at least a little. Contrast with the other party here and what he puts into the world and you will understand the outpouring of sincere regret from many corners at O' Connor's passing.

I never met her and know her only through her work but I think a fitting way to honor her, that I hope she might have appreciated, would be to consider her example and take courage to do things in your own life, though your reach may be far more limited, to move the needle towards justice even a little.
posted by Nerd of the North at 8:08 PM on July 26, 2023 [22 favorites]

Thanks for your work Sinead, you'll be missed.
posted by Liquidwolf at 8:15 PM on July 26, 2023 [1 favorite]

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posted by aneel at 8:23 PM on July 26, 2023

I saw her tear up that picture of the pope live on TV and I thought “Wow, that’s brave.”

And it was. It was brave and necessary.

Here’s her singing a duet with Matt Johnson on The The’s Kingdom of Rain. The high note she hits at about the 2:10 mark is damn powerful.
posted by Devils Rancher at 8:41 PM on July 26, 2023 [10 favorites]

اللهم اغفر لحيانا وميتانا وشاهدنا وغائبنا وصغيرنا وكبيرنا وذكرنا وأنثانا. اللهم من أحييته منا فأحيه على الإسلام، ومن توفيته منا فتوفه على الإيمان.
posted by ob1quixote at 8:44 PM on July 26, 2023 [2 favorites]

This hits terribly hard. She was fucking real.

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posted by a snickering nuthatch at 8:45 PM on July 26, 2023 [6 favorites]

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posted by JakeEXTREME at 8:49 PM on July 26, 2023

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posted by pianoblack at 8:52 PM on July 26, 2023

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Welcome to the only game in town. (achewood)
posted by zenon at 8:59 PM on July 26, 2023 [1 favorite]

The waves crash in.

On each wave is a crest, and in the top of that crest is foam, and in that foam at the very top there are sparkles caught in the sunlight, refracting, reflecting, shining.

The wave hits the shore and rolls back, and here comes the next wave.

The beauty, if you keep your eyes open, and get lucky, you get to see the sunlight's beauty in the top of the wave.

Sinéad lived there.

(Steppenwolf, I believe)
posted by dancestoblue at 9:04 PM on July 26, 2023 [11 favorites]

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posted by luckynerd at 9:05 PM on July 26, 2023

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She was a genuine world-class talent with an utterly unique singing voice.

(And maybe this is not the right time or place but maybe it is. There has been a lot of talk in recent years how we owe Sinead O'Connor an apology for cancelling her over ripping the picture of the pope. While I certainly stand with her stance against the Catholic Church over the abuse scandal, I have to wonder: was it really all that well known in 1992 that there was widespread abuse in the Church? It seems to me that shortly after that, it began trickling out about the abuse, but it simply wasn't widespread knowledge in 1992.

So while I of course stand with O'Connor for her stance on the church, her message--"Fight the real enemy!"--didn't exactly explain the issue. All people knew was this woman ripped up a picture of the pope. Did she sing about the abuse? Give a speech about it? Explain what she was talking about in any way? These aren't rhetorical questions--I am genuinely curious. Because while I don't agree with her cancellation, it's more understandable that people would react that way if ignorant of the facts. In other words, I agreed with her position but not with her tactic.)
posted by zardoz at 9:20 PM on July 26, 2023 [1 favorite]

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posted by Sauter Vaguely at 9:25 PM on July 26, 2023

"The only thing you own in this world is yourself."

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posted by Token Meme at 9:28 PM on July 26, 2023 [2 favorites]

zardos: Persistent jokes about priests and choirboys would suggest it wasn't as under the rug as one would think. And I wonder what you hope she would have done; she used the platform given to her as a young singer the best she could - no-one was going to give her time to really speak, and that torn photo was a moment no-one could stop.

We've had this specific discussion on the blue before. Her obituary thread may not be the place to rehash it.

Even now, the questioning and the doubt. I'm sorry, dear lady.

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posted by Jilder at 9:31 PM on July 26, 2023 [31 favorites]

Beth Orton has a moving thread on Twitter about Sinead's passing.
posted by TheDonF at 9:47 PM on July 26, 2023 [7 favorites]

I listened to part of the You're Wrong About podcast, and was struck by the story of her first-ever US prime-time TV appearance, at the 1989 Grammy awards. This was the first year that the Grammys gave an award for rap, which had become so popular that they couldn't ignore it. But they gave out the award before the telecast; most of the nominees (including the eventual winners) boycotted the awards as a protest, although Kool Moe Dee showed up.

Sinéad showed up and did her performance, but she had the Public Enemy logo painted on the side of her head, to make sure that rap had at least a little visibility at the awards. Public Enemy hadn't even been nominated, even though they had dropped the stone-classic It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back (and it had contemporaneous critical acclaim, winning the Pazz and Jop poll in a landslide). The winner was DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince, "Parents Just Don't Understand".

Two years later, when she refused to have any part of the Grammys ("they respect mostly material gain") after Nothing Compares 2 U became a hit -- the first artist ever to refuse a Grammy -- Public Enemy also boycotted the awards, and Living Colour's Vernon Reid accepted the award for Best Hard Rock performance in a Sinéad O'Connor t-shirt.

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posted by Superilla at 9:49 PM on July 26, 2023 [60 favorites]

What a damn shame.
posted by flabdablet at 9:58 PM on July 26, 2023

She leaves a body of work, and a moment of targeted righteous anger. Respect & grief.
posted by theora55 at 10:07 PM on July 26, 2023 [1 favorite]

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posted by Badmichelle at 10:16 PM on July 26, 2023

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posted by Big Al 8000 at 10:18 PM on July 26, 2023

An absolute Giant of our time, and the shadow she casts into the future will darken the worlds view of the Catholic Church as long as it exists or can be remembered.

If they have any sense, they’ll eventually try to reclaim her as a Saint, and I only wish I thought there was a place she might be to see that and laugh.
posted by jamjam at 10:24 PM on July 26, 2023 [8 favorites]

If they have any sense, they’ll eventually try to reclaim her as a Saint

Absolutely. I just watched her performance of Prayer of Saint Francis / Make Me a Channel of your Peace. She would be a fine saint.
posted by roolya_boolya at 10:32 PM on July 26, 2023 [12 favorites]

Did she sing about the abuse? Give a speech about it? Explain what she was talking about in any way? These aren't rhetorical questions--I am genuinely curious.

She did sing about it and she did discuss it in interviews. I don't think it was known at the time of the SNL incident that that the specific picture of the pope that she destroyed was the same one her abusive mother kept over her bed, but nevertheless O'Connor was never coy about what she'd suffered and what she was fighting for. She always told the truth, quite directly; it was just that a lot of people weren't prepared to listen (or weren't prepared to report truthfully what she was saying).

I was in my early 20s at the time (grappling with my own Catholicism, for what it's worth) and I understood exactly the statement she was making -- even if I didn't fully grasp at the time how extraordinarily brave she was, or how horrifically she had suffered.
posted by paper scissors sock at 11:05 PM on July 26, 2023 [35 favorites]

I was in my early 20s at the time (grappling with my own Catholicism, for what it's worth) and I understood exactly the statement she was making

I guess my point is that as a non-Catholic, even as an atheist, I didn't understand what statement she was making, and for religious people who were simultaneously uninformed about the abuse, it's easy to see why they reacted the way they did.

And I wonder what you hope she would have done; she used the platform given to her as a young singer the best she could - no-one was going to give her time to really speak, and that torn photo was a moment no-one could stop.

I mean, it's easy for me to say now she should've said something, like "Catholic priests have been systematically abusing children and the Church has been covering it up." So then there would have been a context to ripping up a picture of the pope. For most people, there was just the ripping.
posted by zardoz at 11:16 PM on July 26, 2023 [1 favorite]

I mean, it's easy for me to say now she should've said something, like "Catholic priests have been systematically abusing children and the Church has been covering it up." So then there would have been a context to ripping up a picture of the pope. For most people, there was just the ripping.

And my point is that she frequently discussed the context -- in songs and in interviews. But plenty of people didn't want to hear her. Or they heard her and dismissed her as crazy/hysterical/lying. Or they heard only an incomplete version about it on the news. Combine all this with the fact that there wasn't yet a widespread public movement against abuse in the Catholic church.

The information was there. Plenty of people knew what she was talking about. It just hadn't reached critical mass yet (and the fact that it did eventually reach critical mass is due in no small part to what she did). If you didn't have enough curiosity to seek out more information beyond whatever distorted story of the event you read about in the paper, that's not on Sinead O'Connor's shoulders.
posted by paper scissors sock at 11:36 PM on July 26, 2023 [46 favorites]

So then there would have been a context to ripping up a picture of the pope.

The context was there. All one needed to do was look at John Paul II's tenure - the fact that he was elected to the papacy as part of a (rather successful) reactionary backlash to Vatican II, his pushing of anti-contraception policies that served to undermine efforts to combat the spread of HIV (particularly in developing nations with large Catholic populations), and his inaction towards the abuses of the Church, which were being outed thanks to the testimony of victims like O'Connor. The problem was that people didn't want to believe that their faith had such a rotten core, aided by PR boosting JPII's image for a number of geopolitical reasons.

It's not O'Connor's fault we didn't listen. It's ours.
posted by NoxAeternum at 11:38 PM on July 26, 2023 [39 favorites]

Hands-down, my favorite performance of hers. It used to be on youtube, now you have to dig for it. It's amazing. Stop and watch.
posted by nushustu at 11:46 PM on July 26, 2023 [17 favorites]

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posted by Halloween Jack at 11:55 PM on July 26, 2023

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posted by Coaticass at 12:12 AM on July 27, 2023

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posted by nikoniko at 12:39 AM on July 27, 2023

I mean, it's easy for me to say now she should've said something, like "Catholic priests have been systematically abusing children and the Church has been covering it up." So then there would have been a context to ripping up a picture of the pope. For most people, there was just the ripping.

But it wasn't just about priests molesting children. I'm one year older than Sinéad, grew up in the USA, not Catholic, and when she ripped up the pic on SNL I wasn't confused about why she did it at all! It was enough to know that Ireland was completely dominated by the Catholic Church, and very conservative Catholicism, no birth control, no abortion, no divorce. Even without the abuse scandals, without knowing the details of the Laundries, she was right.
posted by Rhedyn at 1:33 AM on July 27, 2023 [65 favorites]

Thanks everyone, I appreciate the information.
posted by zardoz at 2:02 AM on July 27, 2023 [5 favorites]

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posted by valdesm at 2:13 AM on July 27, 2023

Welcome to the only game in town. (achewood)
posted by zenon at 11:59 PM on July 26

I think you meant to link to this.
posted by Mchelly at 2:28 AM on July 27, 2023 [7 favorites]

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posted by miles per flower at 2:59 AM on July 27, 2023

Mandinka - her first single - performed here live on Letterman, shaved head, amazing voice, utterly confident. She explained about the song at the time "Mandinkas are an African tribe. They’re mentioned in a book called Roots by Alex Haley, which is what the song is about. In order to understand it you must read the book.”
posted by rongorongo at 3:06 AM on July 27, 2023 [7 favorites]

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posted by Lesser Spotted Potoroo at 3:18 AM on July 27, 2023

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posted by Gelatin at 4:35 AM on July 27, 2023

RIP. Sad loss for a brave woman.

I've explained before, but there was very little context in the US for most people when the picture ripping took place. Most people didn't know anything about her, and most people generally respected the Catholic Church. This was before the sex abuse cases really turned into a thing in the popular mind about 10 years later and their revelations really steamrolled into public knowledge.

I had no real context, as I full well know there are lots of people with a huge beef over the Church, for a variety of reasons. To me the event was kind of a shrug. But I didn't grow up in a country where the Church wielded such deep authority over the polity. She was at the forefront of this critical wave, and bless her for for shining light on it when most of us here in the US hadn't paid much attention.
posted by 2N2222 at 5:25 AM on July 27, 2023 [4 favorites]

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posted by james33 at 5:48 AM on July 27, 2023

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posted by faceplantingcheetah at 6:47 AM on July 27, 2023

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posted by exlotuseater at 7:15 AM on July 27, 2023

"I've explained before, but there was very little context in the US for most people when the picture ripping took place. Most people didn't know anything about her, and most people generally respected the Catholic Church. This was before the sex abuse cases really turned into a thing in the popular mind about 10 years later and their revelations really steamrolled into public knowledge."

I believe that is dependent on who you were at the time and how much you wanted to know. I was 17 when she tore up the photo. I grew up in a small Southern town that didn't even have a Catholic church. I was in my late 30s before I realized that the reason the McFish showed up on the menu in March-ish was due to Lent. I had almost no lived experience with the Catholic Church. But I knew about the sex abuse scandals. I knew that the Irish had a fraught experience with the Church. I knew that the Church was restrictive and oppressive to women and children. And all of that I learned from U2, Monty Python, and random media. So when Sinead tore up that photo, I knew what she was saying and why.

She was one of the few musicians in the world that made me want to be a better person and make a better world. She truly believed that we all deserved better than the world we made and I'm deeply sorry we couldn't make the changes that were needed to save her.

May she find peace.
posted by teleri025 at 7:28 AM on July 27, 2023 [36 favorites]

there was very little context in the US for most people when the picture ripping took place. Most people didn't know anything about her, and most people generally respected the Catholic Church

No, there were Irish-specific aspects of it that were opaque to me, but as a U.S. teenager at the time raised Christian but not Catholic I understood generally what she was on about. IIRC (and it's been a long time) I was somewhat puzzled by the intensity of the critical reaction. It seemed like regular protest rock-and-roll stuff to me.

Also...this was a performance. In performance, sometimes you make gestures without accompanying lectures and they are still effective.
posted by praemunire at 7:48 AM on July 27, 2023 [34 favorites]

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posted by nightrecordings at 7:54 AM on July 27, 2023

there was very little context in the US for most people when the picture ripping took place

I was a very non-Catholic college sophomore who'd grown up in smalltown East Texas when this happened and I knew enough to know part of what it meant. Of course, the 80s had no chill for dealing with sensitive topics, so altar boy jokes were already well in the zeitgeist (there is at least one nodding reference to the altar boy situation in The Exorcist, which came out in 1973). The church in the US - under the guidance of Pope Benedict (Ratzinger) and Boston Archbishops Cardinals Medeiros and Law - had been very effective in suppressing national coverage until the explosive Boston Globe expose in 2002, but if you consumed local news (particularly newspapers and news magazines), there were a steady stream of small and large accusations and settlements from various dioceses through the 80s (but records of actual settlements in the US go back to at least the 1950s).

(Much the same could be said about the Boy Scouts, which I know I'd heard rumblings about by at least 87ish.)

I too got some of this information from listening to bands from Ireland, following Amnesty International, and having some interest in women's rights and reproductive justice, but I also got a lot of it from American outlets like Newsweek (which was a real news magazine back then), US News and World Report, and occasional little bits - this is sort of how whisper networks worked at the time - in People and similar non-tabloid pop culture magazines.

American Catholics knew why she did it, probably better than most because they also knew about the US Catholic infrastructure for "unwed mothers", and mounted an impressive pearl-clutching campaign. Some American non-Catholics presumed it was solely about sexual abuse of boys, but see again re "lack of chill" and so many of those people participated in the backlash because pile-ons are fun, it's easier to blame sexual abuse on victims and their families, the Pope seemed vaguely important, and we hate women. Other American non-Catholics also presumed it was mostly about the sexual abuse, also had high skepticism about organized religion on a whole, and figured she had a point.

I'll accept that some low-information Americans didn't know and couldn't figure out why she did it, and there's probably an age cut-off (if you weren't Catholic) where you wouldn't have known at all why some lady tore up a picture of someone vaguely important on a late-night comedy show you weren't allowed to watch. But the idea that there was no context was a well-funded fabrication.
posted by Lyn Never at 7:55 AM on July 27, 2023 [34 favorites]

LONDON, July 27 (Reuters) - Irish singer Sinead O'Connor, who died on Wednesday aged 56, was found unresponsive at an address in London and pronounced dead at the scene, London's Metropolitan Police said. "The death is not being treated as suspicious."

London Inner South Coroner's Court said it had been notified of O'Connor's death. "No medical cause of death was given. The coroner therefore directed an autopsy to be conducted. The results of this may not available for several weeks," the court said in a statement. A decision on whether an inquest will be needed will be made when these results are known and submissions have been heard from the family, the court added.
posted by Lanark at 8:26 AM on July 27, 2023 [1 favorite]

this person's contributions to the world are so much greater than one gesture on a TV show

I surely hope we can share our thoughts of Sinead O'Connor at this time, without feeling compelled to respond to what one guy on the internet thinks of the gesture

Rest in power
posted by elkevelvet at 8:39 AM on July 27, 2023 [17 favorites]

There’s a difference between knowing specific details about an organized conspiracy to protect child-molesting priests from consequences — which is what I think a lot of people today understand “child abuse in the Catholic church” to mean — and knowing that emotional, physical, and sexual abuse of children and women was endemic throughout the church, with its victims silenced, disbelieved, and shamed. Sinead’s interviews made it clear she was talking about child abuse in that second broader sense. She was calling out the underlying culture of shame, covert violence, hypocrisy, and subordination that made those abuses possible.

For additional context about Church-sanctioned violence (and how it extended far beyond a coverup of serial child-molester priests), this story about a Catholic orphanage in my (American) hometown is a very tough but informative read. (I mean very tough; serious trigger warnings for any type of child abuse you can imagine, including torture and murder, much of it by nuns and some by laypeople.)

.
posted by en forme de poire at 8:43 AM on July 27, 2023 [7 favorites]

A few years ago, we visited the Irish Rock and Roll Museum / Hall of Fame in Dublin. A tour guide told us a story about how, at the end of the tour, when they go outside to the 3-story-tall mural depicting the faces of many famous Irish musicians. The guide asked the group to identify them all, and they did, save for recognizing O'Connor. What the guide didn't know is that Sinead O'Connor was working at the recording studio upstairs and had come down to the street for a break and overheard this group not being able to recognize her. She made herself known to the group after a moment and, according to the guide, wasn't too happy about being unrecognizable to the majority.

I totally get that. She had every right to be pissed off. She was ahead of her time. She produced art she believed in and swam strongly upstream against a torrent of Catholic backlash. Hindsight has taught us she was right, but being right rarely ever manifests in being held in regard in people's minds. RIP.
posted by bryanzera at 8:44 AM on July 27, 2023 [9 favorites]

𝄐
𝄻
posted by adekllny at 8:48 AM on July 27, 2023 [1 favorite]

.

Sinead O'Connor was a warrior princess. May she rest.
posted by bluesky43 at 8:56 AM on July 27, 2023 [6 favorites]

While driving to work I play various mixed CDs, and lodged between some punk, rock, and other classics is Troy. Decades after first hearing it it still amazes.
Live version of Troy from 1988 - Six minute long debut single based on WB Yates' No Second Troy , two chords, stripped down - incredible song and performance.
posted by rongorongo at 9:09 AM on July 27, 2023 [3 favorites]

Newstalk Dublin is interviewing people who knew her and worked with her. It's great listening.
posted by jgirl at 9:14 AM on July 27, 2023 [2 favorites]

.
posted by Bella Donna at 9:20 AM on July 27, 2023

quoting someone who I've gotten pretty good at ignoring for a pile of reasons, but every now and then:

“She had only so much ‘self’ to give,” [he] said of O’Connor. “She was dropped by her label after selling 7 million albums for them. She became crazed, yes, but uninteresting, never. She had done nothing wrong. She had proud vulnerability … and there is a certain music industry hatred for singers who don’t ‘fit in’ (this I know only too well), and they are never praised until death – when, finally, they can’t answer back.”

“The press will label artists as pests because of what they withhold,” [he] continued, “and they would call Sinead sad, fat, shocking, insane … oh but not today! Music CEOs who had put on their most charming smile as they refused her for their roster are queuing-up to call her a ‘feminist icon’, and 15 minute celebrities and goblins from hell and record labels of artificially aroused diversity are squeezing onto Twitter to twitter their jibber-jabber … when it was YOU who talked Sinead into giving up … because she refused to be labelled, and she was degraded, as those few who move the world are always degraded.”

Ultimately, [he] concluded, O’Connor fell victim to the same fate as Judy Garland, Whitney Houston, Amy Winehouse, Marilyn Monroe, and Billie Holiday. “She was a challenge, and she couldn’t be boxed-up, and she had the courage to speak when everyone else stayed safely silent,” [he] said. “She was harassed simply for being herself. Her eyes finally closed in search of a soul she could call her own.”
posted by philip-random at 9:22 AM on July 27, 2023 [33 favorites]

This is not her song per se, but a collaboration with Massive Attack on which Sinead does lead vocals. For that reason, fans of her albums may not have run across this one before:

Don't be afraid
Open your mouth to say
Say what your soul sings to you..

Massive Attack - "What Your Soul Sings"

posted by Nerd of the North at 9:27 AM on July 27, 2023 [6 favorites]

So many systems of the world were aligned against her, and yet she survived 56 years and gifted the world with more beauty than it showed her.

In addition to her own music, I realized yesterday that she opened the door to many other artists for me as well. She appeared on "Visions of You" by Jah Wobble and the Invaders of the Heart, which introduced me to Jah Wobble and following his body of work led me to other artists. I doubt I'd have taken notice of it except that it was soon after the release of I do not want what I have not got, and I was hungry for anything else with her vocals.

May she find peace, and may we all learn better how to create a world that can support and nurture people instead of punishing them.
posted by jzb at 9:27 AM on July 27, 2023 [8 favorites]

All Kinds of Everything - with the late Terry Hall.
A cover of Dana's Eurovision winning song from 1970.
posted by thatwhichfalls at 10:01 AM on July 27, 2023 [2 favorites]

.
posted by annieb at 10:17 AM on July 27, 2023

She was also very funny. From her autobiography:

Yeats is out of his mind there, writing "Easter, 1916," about the tragic uprising by Irish Republicans against the British. Nobody is fucking laughing now is what I wrote on my test in answer to the question What was the poet saying?
posted by thatwhichfalls at 10:31 AM on July 27, 2023 [12 favorites]

.
posted by mygothlaundry at 10:47 AM on July 27, 2023

From Welcome to Hell World by Luke O'Neil:
Even from the beginning, Sinéad O’Connor had a patriarchy-sized target on her back. She was a young, unwed mother, from a country roiling with political turmoil. She was poor. She was "bad." ...And despite—or maybe because of—being Sinéad O’Rebellion, she was extremely horny. She wore combat boots, ripped denim, and no makeup, and sang about being touched, wanted, craved in visceral and direct language. The first time she played in the States (on David Letterman) she performed Mandinka (an example of her range and power), but the extremely graphic I Want Your Hands On Me was really her bigger hit, a song about the urgency of desire. She flirted on stage. She fell in love hard. In her memoir she wrote “I have four children by four different fathers, only one of whom I married, and I married three other men, none of whom are the fathers of my children.” She would not let you forget her sexuality, even when she actively defied all its classical signifiers.
posted by Bella Donna at 11:22 AM on July 27, 2023 [20 favorites]

Bella Donna: From Welcome to Hell World by Luke O'Neil:

This is a great quote, but the author is Leila Brillson, O’Neil merely posted it.
posted by Kattullus at 11:44 AM on July 27, 2023 [5 favorites]

this person's contributions to the world are so much greater than one gesture on a TV show

Here's a Guardian piece that concentrates on her accomplished and hugely versatile discography.
posted by Paul Slade at 11:48 AM on July 27, 2023 [10 favorites]

All Kinds of Everything - with the late Terry Hall.
A cover of Dana's Eurovision winning song from 1970
I love this because somebody has listened to that song and thought “of all the singers in the world which particular duo would be ideal to take this on?” - looks like EuroTrash was in on the act.
posted by rongorongo at 12:32 PM on July 27, 2023 [3 favorites]

.
posted by gt2 at 4:34 PM on July 27, 2023

.
posted by socialjusticeworrier at 4:34 PM on July 27, 2023

I was a fucked up emotional fuckup in my twenties. I absolutely loved her and and I loved her music. Rest in peace and thank you.
posted by gt2 at 4:54 PM on July 27, 2023 [2 favorites]

.
posted by Ceridwen at 6:17 PM on July 27, 2023

Sinéad O'Connor's open letter to Miley Cyrus
posted by ovvl at 6:33 PM on July 27, 2023 [6 favorites]

Hope she pokes John Paul in the ribs with a very stingy spear for the rest of eternity. Such a loss.
posted by Roverlaw at 7:18 PM on July 27, 2023 [6 favorites]

.
posted by Sing Fool Sing at 10:34 PM on July 27, 2023

.
posted by hap_hazard at 11:28 PM on July 27, 2023

Thanks for the correction, Kattullus. My apologies, all.
posted by Bella Donna at 11:29 PM on July 27, 2023 [1 favorite]

All Kinds of Everything - with the late Terry Hall.

Loved this—especially the moments where her face lights up. It's available on her Collaborations album of 2005, for anyone wanting to track down a clean recording.

The news about her in recent years hasn't been good, so sadly this wasn't as much of a shock as, say, Dolores O'Riordan's death, but it's still awful. She would have made a brilliant elderly firebrand.

I hope we'll get to hear No Veteran Dies Alone.
posted by rory at 5:09 AM on July 28, 2023 [5 favorites]

“You Know I Couldn't Last,” Morrisey, Morrisey Central, 26 July 2023

P.S. It is against my policy to editorialize about links, but I feel compelled to note that Morrisey has become a reactionary crank. However, his criticism in this piece of the press and the labels is not wrong.
posted by ob1quixote at 9:01 AM on July 28, 2023 [3 favorites]

“never get old,” Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg, Life is a Sacred Text, 28 July 2023
posted by ob1quixote at 10:10 AM on July 28, 2023 [7 favorites]

JUST coming here to post that, too, ob1quixote. An excellent read from someone who understands clearly what repentance looks like and how the Catholic Church had failed Sinead, and so many others, in its attempts.
posted by hanov3r at 10:16 AM on July 28, 2023 [2 favorites]

Here's a little remembrance from a reporter that became friendly with her after doing a profile. It includes a recording of an absolutely shattering song she recorded on her front porch. Washington Post gift link
posted by PussKillian at 11:30 AM on July 28, 2023 [6 favorites]

.
posted by filtergik at 1:05 PM on July 28, 2023

.
posted by camyram at 2:00 PM on July 28, 2023

Warrior.

.
posted by cotton dress sock at 12:08 AM on July 29, 2023

Haunted, with Shane MacGowan.
posted by Paul Slade at 9:34 AM on July 29, 2023 [1 favorite]

Here in London, we have a medieval graveyard called Crossbones, where small tributes to today's lost, forsaken and despised dead are mounted on the gates. I added a photo of Sinéad O'Connor there today. For all her fame, it felt appropriate as a place to mark her passing.
posted by Paul Slade at 9:45 AM on July 29, 2023 [10 favorites]

With Van
posted by OHenryPacey at 12:57 PM on July 29, 2023 [1 favorite]

I’m still thinking a lot about Sinéad O’Connor. This morning I thought about her appearance at the Bob Dylan tribute concert, shortly after tearing up the photograph of Pope John Paul II on Saturday Night Live.

Something that occurred to me that I had never thought about before today (but has been written about) is that an entire stadium of fans, at a concert to pay tribute to a man FAMOUS for writing protest songs, booed a woman for protesting.

And only ONE singer, at this concert to pay tribute to a man famous for writing protest music by preforming his music, took the stage to publicly support O’Connor.

What a fucking travesty.
posted by theBigRedKittyPurrs at 8:37 AM on July 30, 2023 [15 favorites]

(When I watched the video, it sounded to me like lots of people were also clapping and cheering for O’Connor, and that both camps trying to drown each other out, which may be part of why it went on for so long? Anyway, it wasn’t the entire stadium, though it was a large proportion of the audience - the backlash against her was certainly strong and widespread at the time.)
posted by eviemath at 9:03 AM on July 30, 2023 [1 favorite]

“The gospel according to Sinéad O'Connor: She was right all along,” Amanda Marcotte, Salon, 27 July 2023
posted by ob1quixote at 10:42 AM on July 30, 2023 [2 favorites]

her appearance at the Bob Dylan tribute concert

It was good to see Kris Kristofferson supporting her as he did there.
posted by Paul Slade at 10:56 PM on July 30, 2023 [6 favorites]

When she tore up that photo we still had faith in institutions like the Church and its message that JP2 was a living saint. Every time an institution faces an abuse scandal since then I hope it will different. Yet I see the same shit play out again and again.
posted by interogative mood at 10:17 AM on July 31, 2023

I have to wonder: was it really all that well known in 1992 that there was widespread abuse in the Church?

After some pondering, here is the short version of my answer (this kind of question brings back a lot of feelings):

As a queer teenager in fairly-elite mid-Atlantic circles at that time, child sexual abuse by Catholic priests and the complicity of the Church in covering it up was well known, at least in the circles that were the demographic of the victims. You were told who not to be alone with.

The only thing that surprised me is that it took as long as it did for media/law enforcement to start spreading the information about it. It wasn't that the information wasn't out there, it's that the powers that be chose to ignore it until they were forced to deal with it. Children were sacrificed on the alter.

To bring it back to Sinead, a favorite reggae influenced track I think deserved more attention than it got.
posted by Candleman at 8:49 PM on July 31, 2023 [7 favorites]

Foo Fighters w/Alanis Morissette - Mandinka (7/29/23)
posted by box at 9:51 AM on August 1, 2023

I have to wonder: was it really all that well known in 1992 that there was widespread abuse in the Church?

Yes, emphatically yes. It was a trope and used as a punchline widely at that time. People knew, especially the people who lambasted O'Connor for her protest.

I think the anger directed at her was because people knew but it was something you were not supposed to address. I think that if it wasn't widely known the reaction would've been much different. More "what is this person talking about? What the eff?" and not "how dare you attack this institution?"

She said the thing out loud you weren't supposed to say out loud and shined a light at the rot in the institution that so many knew was there – but didn't want discussed on a national stage.

People's reactions to criticism are telling. Unfounded criticism is rarely met with a violent response. It's when the criticism hits home that you get that type of reaction. People absolutely knew, it just wasn't (openly, seriously) discussed.
posted by jzb at 10:01 AM on August 1, 2023 [16 favorites]

“This Is The Last Day Of Our Acquaintance,” A. R. Moxon, The Reframe, 01 August 2023
posted by ob1quixote at 12:51 PM on August 1, 2023 [2 favorites]

“The World Destroyed Sinead O’Connor,” Brian Hiatt, Rolling Stone, 31 July 2023

One of the late singer's biggest fans, Garbage frontwoman Shirley Manson, goes in-depth on what O'Connor meant to her — and how the music industry and the larger world let O'Connor down

posted by ob1quixote at 5:25 AM on August 4, 2023 [6 favorites]

Sinéad was laid to rest this morning, with a public gathering to pay respects to the cortège before she was buried in a private funeral. Every radio station in Ireland played Nothing Compares 2 U as the funeral procession reached the end of Bray seafront.

RTÉ News coverage and (now archived) live blog.

Irish Times coverage and video, including music from Bob Marley, who was a hero to her, as charmingly related by a neighbour.

Giant installation on Bray Head honours Sinead O’Connor. A shame we couldn't write love for her on the soil of Ireland until she passed.

Sinéad: Universal Mother Éire
posted by roolya_boolya at 8:03 AM on August 8, 2023 [18 favorites]

One of the late singer's biggest fans, Garbage frontwoman Shirley Manson, goes in-depth on what O'Connor meant to her

A great interview, and so true.
posted by rory at 6:12 AM on August 9, 2023 [1 favorite]

The last day of our acquaintance .
posted by latkes at 10:26 AM on August 11, 2023 [5 favorites]