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Shuhada' Sadaqat (previously Magda Davitt and born Sinéad Marie Bernadette O'Connor; b. December 8, 1966, Dublin, Ireland – d. July 26, 2023, London, England), known professionally as Sinéad O'Connor, 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), became her biggest success, selling over seven million copies worldwide. Its lead single, "Nothing Compare 2 U", was named the number-one world single in 1990 by the Billboard Music Awards.
O'Connor released 10 studio albums. Am I Not Your Girl? (1992) and Universal Mother (1994) were certified gold (over 100,000 in sales) in the United Kingdom. Faith and Courage (2000) was certified gold in Australia and Throw Down Your Arms (2005) went gold in Ireland. Her work included songs for films, collaborations with many other artists, and appearances at charity fundraising concerts. Her 2021 memoir Rememberings was a bestseller.
In 1999, O'Connor was ordained as a priest by the Latin Tridentine Church, a sect that is not recognized by the mainstream Catholic Church. She consistently spoke out on issues related to child abuse, human rights, racism, organized religion, and women's rights. Throughout her music career, O'Connor spoke about her spiritual journey, activism, socio-political views, as well as her trauma and mental health struggles. In 2017, O'Connor changed her name to Magda Davitt. After converting to Islam in 2018, she changed it again to Shuhada' Sadaqat. However, O'Connor continued to record and perform under her birth name.
O'Connor was born in the Cascia House Nursing Home at 13 Pembroke Road, Dublin, Ireland, on December 8, 1966. She was named Sinéad after Sinead de Valera, the mother of the doctor presiding over the delivery, Eamon de Valera, Jr., and Bernadette in honor of Saint Bernadette of Lourdes. She was the third of five children. Her siblings were Joseph (a novelist), Eimear, John, and Eoin.
O'Connor's parents were John Oliver "Seán" O'Connor, a structureal engineer later turned barrister and chairperson of the Divorce Action Group, and Johanna Marie O'Grady (1939–1985), who married in the Church of Our Lady of Good Counsel, Drimnagh, Dublin, in 1960. O'Connor attended Dominican College Sion Hill school in Blackrock, County Dublin.
In 1979, O'Connor left her mother and went to live with her father, who had married Viola Margaret Suiter (nee Cook) in Alexandria, Virginia, United States, three years prior in 1976. At the age of 15, her shoplifting and truancy led to her being placed for 18 months in a Magdalene asylum called the Grianán Training Centre run by the Order of Our Lady of Charity. In some ways, she thrived there, especially in the development of her writing and music, but she also chafed under the imposed conformity. Unruly students there were sometimes sent to sleep in the adjoining nursing home, an experience of which she later commented, "I have never—and probably will never—experience such panic and terror and agony over anything."
O'Connor's mother Marie died in a car accident on 10 February 10, 1985 at the age of 45 as she lost control of her car on an icy road and crashed into a bus. O'Connor was 18 when her mother died.
O'Connor had four children and was married and divorced four times. She had her first son, Jake, in 1987 with her first husband, music producer John Reynolds, who co-produced several of her albums, including Universal Mother. Reynolds and O'Connor later married in Westminster register office in March 1989. The same year, O'Connor had an abortion after things did not work out with the father. She later wrote the song "My Special Child" about the experience. O'Connor and Reynolds announced their plan to divorce in November 1991 after being separated for some time.
Soon after the birth of her daughter Brigidine Roisin Waters on March 10, 1996, O'Connor and the girl's father, Irish journalist John Waters, began a long custody battle that ended with O'Connor agreeing to let Roisin live in Dublin with Waters. In August 2001, O'Connor married British journalist Nick Sommerlad in Wales. The marriage ended in July 2002 after 11 months. She had her third child, son Shane, in 2004 with musician Donal Lunny. In 2006, she had her fourth child, Yeshua Francis Neil Bonadio, whose father is Frank Bonadio.
O'Connor was married a third time on July 22, 2010, to longtime friend and collaborator Steve Cooney, and in late March 2011, made the decision to separate. Her fourth marriage was to Irish therapist Barry Herridge. They wed on December 9, 2011, in Las Vegas.
On July 18, 2015, O'Connor's first grandson was born to her son Jake Reynolds and his girlfriend Lia.
On January 7, 2022, two days after her 17-year-old son Shane was reported missing from Newbridge, County Kildare, he was found dead by the Gardai (the police) in the Bray/Shankill part of Dublin. O'Connor stated that her son, custody of whom she lost in 2013, had been on "suicide watch" at Tallaght Hospital, and had "ended his earthly struggle".
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Sinead O’Connor, Evocative and Outspoken Singer, Is Dead at 56
She broke out with the single “Nothing Compares 2 U,” then caused an uproar a few years later by ripping up a photo of Pope John Paul II on “S.N.L.”
Ben Sisario and
Sinead O’Connor, the outspoken Irish singer-songwriter known for her powerful, evocative voice, as showcased on her biggest hit, a breathtaking rendition of Prince’s “Nothing Compares 2 U,” and for her political provocations onstage and off, has died. She was 56.
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Her longtime friend Bob Geldof, the Irish musician and activist, confirmed her death, as did her family in a statement, according to the BBC and the Irish public broadcaster RTE.
“It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of our beloved Sinead,” the statement said. “Her family and friends are devastated and have requested privacy at this very difficult time.”
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On Thursday, the police in London said that Ms. O’Connor’s body had been found on Wednesday at a private home in the city. “The death is not being treated as suspicious,” the police said in a statement.
Recognizable by her shaved head and by wide eyes that could appear pained or full of rage, Ms. O’Connor released 10 studio albums, beginning with the alternative hit “The Lion and the Cobra” in 1987. She went on to sell millions of albums worldwide, breaking out with “I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got” in 1990.
That album, featuring “Nothing Compares 2 U,” a No. 1 hit around the world and an MTV staple, won a Grammy Award in 1991 for best alternative music performance — although Ms. O’Connor boycotted the ceremony over what she called the show’s excessive commercialism.
Ms. O’Connor rarely shrank from controversy, but it often came with consequences for her career.
In 1990, she threatened to cancel a performance in New Jersey if “The Star-Spangled Banner” was played at the concert hall ahead of her appearance, drawing the ire of no less than Frank Sinatra. That same year, she backed out of an appearance on “Saturday Night Live” in protest of the misogyny she perceived in the comedy of Andrew Dice Clay, who was scheduled to host.
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But all of that paled in comparison to the uproar caused when Ms. O’Connor, appearing on “S.N.L.” in 1992 — shortly after the release of her third album, “Am I Not Your Girl?” — ended an a cappella performance of Bob Marley’s “War” by ripping a photo of Pope John Paul II into pieces as a stance against sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic Church. “Fight the real enemy,” she said.
That incident immediately made her a target of criticism and scorn, from social conservatives and beyond. Two weeks after her “S.N.L.” appearance, she was loudly booed at a Bob Dylan tribute concert at Madison Square Garden. (She had planned to perform Mr. Dylan’s “I Believe in You,” but she sang “War” again, rushing off the stage before she had finished.)
For a time, the vitriol directed at Ms. O’Connor was so pervasive that it became a kind of pop culture meme in itself. On “S.N.L.” in early 1993, Madonna mocked the controversy by tearing up a picture of Joey Buttafuoco, the Long Island auto mechanic who was a tabloid fixture at the time because of his affair with a 17-year-old girl.
Once a rising star, Ms. O’Connor then stumbled. “Am I Not Your Girl?,” an album of jazz and pop standards like “Why Don’t You Do Right?” and “Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered,” was stalled on the charts at No. 27. Her next album, “Universal Mother” (1994), went no higher than No. 36.
The British musician Tim Burgess, of the band Charlatans (known in the United States as the Charlatans UK), wrote on Twitter on Wednesday: “Sinead was the true embodiment of a punk spirit. She did not compromise and that made her life more of a struggle.”
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Ms. O’Connor never had another major hit in the United States after “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” from “I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got,” although for a time she remained a staple on the British charts.
But in her 2021 memoir, “Rememberings,” Ms. O’Connor portrayed ripping up the photo of the pope as a righteous act of protest — and therefore a success.
“I feel that having a No. 1 record derailed my career,” she wrote, “and my tearing the photo put me back on the right track.”
She elaborated in an interview with The New York Times that same year, calling the incident an act of defiance against the constraints of pop stardom.
“I’m not sorry I did it. It was brilliant,” Ms. O’Connor said. “But it was very traumatizing,” she added. “It was open season on treating me like a crazy bitch.”
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Sinead Marie Bernadette O’Connor was born in Glenageary, a suburb of Dublin, on Dec. 8, 1966. Her father, John, was an engineer, and her mother, Johanna, was a dressmaker.
In interviews, and in her memoir, Ms. O’Connor spoke openly of having a traumatic childhood. She said that her mother physically abused her and that she had been deeply affected by her parents’ separation, which happened when she was 8. In her teens, she was arrested for shoplifting and sent to reform schools.
When she was 15, Ms. O’Connor sang “Evergreen” — the love theme from “A Star Is Born,” made famous by Barbra Streisand — at a wedding, and was discovered by Paul Byrne, a drummer who had an affiliation with the Irish band U2. She left boarding school at 16 and began her career, supporting herself by waitressing and performing “kiss-o-grams” in a kinky French maid costume.
“The Lion and the Cobra” — the title is an allusion to Psalm 91 — marked her as a rising talent with a spiritual heart, an ear for offbeat melody and a fierce and combative style. Her music drew from 1980s-vintage alternative rock, hip-hop and flashes of Celtic folk that came through when her voice raised to high registers.
She drew headlines for defending the Irish Republican Army and publicly jeered U2 — whose members had supported her — as “bombastic.” She also said she had rejected attempts by her record company, Ensign, to adopt a more conventional image.
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The leaders of the label “wanted me to wear high-heel boots and tight jeans and grow my hair,” Ms. O’Connor told Rolling Stone in 1991. “And I decided that they were so pathetic that I shaved my head so there couldn’t be any further discussion.”
“Nothing Compares 2 U” — originally released by the Family, a Prince side project, in 1985 — became a phenomenon when Ms. O’Connor released it five years later. The video for the song, trained closely on her emotive face, was hypnotic, and Ms. O’Connor’s voice, as it raised from delicate, breathy notes to powerful cries, stopped listeners in their tracks. Singers like Alanis Morissette cited Ms. O’Connor’s work from this period as a key influence.
Not long after “Nothing Compares” became a hit, Ms. O’Connor accused Prince of physically threatening her. She elaborated on the story in her memoir, saying that Prince, at his Hollywood mansion, chastised her for swearing in interviews and suggested a pillow fight, only to hit her with something hard that was in his pillowcase. She escaped on foot in the middle of the night, she said, but Prince chased her around the highway.
The effects of childhood trauma, and finding ways to fight and heal, became a central part of her work and her personal philosophy. “The cause of all the world’s problems, as far as I’m concerned, is child abuse,” Ms. O’Connor told Spin magazine in 1991.
Her mother, whom Ms. O’Connor described as an alcoholic, died when she was 18. In her memoir, Ms. O’Connor said that on the day her mother died she took a picture of the pope from her mother’s wall; it was that photo that she destroyed on television.
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On later albums, she made warmly expansive pop-rock (“Faith and Courage,” 2000), played traditional Irish songs (“Sean-Nós Nua,” 2002) and revisited classic reggae songs (“Throw Down Your Arms,” 2005). Her last album was “I’m Not Bossy, I’m the Boss,” released in 2014.
As her music career slowed, Ms. O’Connor, who had been open in the past about her mental health struggles, became an increasingly erratic public figure, often sharing unfiltered opinions and personal details on social media.
In 2007, she revealed on Oprah Winfrey’s television show that she had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and that she had tried to kill herself on her 33rd birthday. Her son Shane died by suicide in 2022, at 17.
Ms. O’Connor said in 2012 that she had been misdiagnosed and that she was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder stemming from a history of child abuse. “Recovery from child abuse is a life’s work,” she told People magazine.
Several years ago she converted to Islam and started using the name Shuhada Sadaqat, though she continued to answer to O’Connor as well.
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Complete information on survivors was not immediately available. Ms. O’Connor had two brothers, Joe and John, and one sister, Eimear, as well as three stepsisters and a stepbrother. She wrote in her memoir that she was married four times and that she had four children: three sons, Jake, Shane and Yeshua, and a daughter, Roisin.
In discussing her memoir with The Times in 2021, Ms. O’Connor focused on her decision to tear up the photo of John Paul II as a signal moment in a life of protest and defiance.
“The media was making me out to be crazy because I wasn’t acting like a pop star was supposed to act,” she said. “It seems to me that being a pop star is almost like being in a type of prison. You have to be a good girl.”
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Ireland Says Goodbye to Sinéad O’Connor
In the coastal town of Bray, south of Dublin, the site of Ms. O’Connor’s last Irish home, mourners gathered to pay their respects to the singer.
Reporting from Bray, Ireland
Sinéad O’Connor lived her life poised between tradition and rebellion. Ireland’s farewell to her embraced both.
In keeping with an old custom, her coffin was first carried past her last family home in Ireland, in Bray, County Wicklow.
But many of those who gathered there, or who left her tributes, brought a spirit more in keeping with her life as a rebel who took on the establishment — most notably the Roman Catholic Church — and who spoke up for the oppressed. Among the signs left in front of her family home was one that read “BLACK LIVES MATTER,” “GAY PRIDE” and “REFUGEES WELCOME.”
At noon, the cortege reached Ms. O’Connor’s former home on Bray’s seaside promenade, led by a vintage Volkswagen van playing the song “Natural Mystic” by Bob Marley & The Wailers and draped with the Pride and Rastafarian flags. The crowd broke into prolonged applause, with some raising fists in salute. Many were in tears.
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Then, as the police held the crowd back, the hearse, filled with flowers, was driven to a private funeral, followed by vehicles carrying family members and close friends. At 12:30, Irish radio stations coordinated to broadcast Ms. O’Connor’s song “Nothing Compares 2 U” in unison.
Ms. O’Connor, who was found dead in her London apartment last month, was raised Catholic but converted to Islam in 2018, and she received a Muslim burial on Tuesday. Friends including U2’s Bono and The Edge, as well as Bob Geldof, the rock star and activist, were in attendance.
Remembering Sinead O’Connor
The outspoken Irish singer-songwriter, known for her evocative voice and political provocations onstage and off, has died at 56.
- Saying Goodbye to an Icon: Sinead O’Connor lived her life poised between tradition and rebellion. Ireland’s farewell to her, in the coastal town of Bray, embraced both.
- An Alternative Moral Compass: In any society, the singer’s words and actions would have been radical for a pop star. In Ireland, she was revolutionary, an Irish music critic writes.
- A Voice for Change: O’Connor shocked many when she tore up a picture of the pope in 1992. The Roman Catholic Church’s sexual abuse scandals made Ireland more understanding of her criticisms.
- Her Peaceful Haven: For three years during the pandemic, the singer found simplicity and happiness in a mountain sanctuary where she was just another neighbor.
While the family wished to keep the funeral private, they had invited the public to come to Bray for a last goodbye.
Some of those lining the streets were avid fans of her music. Others were activists, and there were also abuse survivors who had drawn strength from Ms. O’Connor’s openness about her own experience of childhood trauma.
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Dave Sharp, who said that in his youth he had spent years in Catholic-run orphanages and been the victim of abuse, traveled to Bray from Glasgow on Monday.
“We didn’t have much notice, but I’d promised myself that I’d be there for her,” he said. “Sinéad O’Connor is one of the bravest women I’ve ever known of. She not only put her life and career on the line, but she was ahead of her time.”
Veronica Kelly, a social worker, caught a bus to Bray at 2 a.m. on Tuesday from the town of Carrick-on-Shannon to ensure she could pay her respects as the cortege passed. She said she admired Ms O’Connor’s compassion and the way she “used her voice” to speak for the disenfranchised. She was also a lifelong fan of her music.
“I couldn’t believe it when she died,” she said. “I still don’t want to believe it. She was my first album and the first concert I ever went to. She really spoke to me.”
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The funeral was led by Sheikh Umar Al-Qadri, an Islamic scholar and the chief imam at the Islamic Center of Ireland. In his eulogy, which he posted online after the ceremony, he spoke of how Ms. O’Connor’s “otherworldly” voice could reduce listeners to tears, citing her a cappella version of “Danny Boy,” and said that her music carried an undertone of hope that brought solace to many.
He also pointed to her faith. “Sinéad suffered more than her share of hardship and adversity, especially in her formative years, much of it from adults and institutions she revered, and yet she displayed an unflinching and resolute faith in the divine,” he said.
In recent days, among a rolling wave of tributes, a creative agency temporarily augmented a World War II territorial marker on nearby Bray Head to celebrate the singer. Where once it said “Eire” — Irish for Ireland — to warn belligerent aircraft that they were approaching neutral Irish territory, the giant sign now says “Eire 🤍 Sinéad.”
Passionate and often controversial, Ms. O’Connor had slowly become, in the eyes of many, a national treasure, a woman who spoke up for the weak and oppressed, and who took an early stand against the abuses of the Catholic Church in Ireland and elsewhere.
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The president of Ireland, Michael D. Higgins, attended the funeral with his wife, Sabina. In a statement on Tuesday morning, he described Ms. O’Connor’s “profound impact” on the Irish people. Speaking of her “immense heroism” and the pain it caused her, he added: “That is why all those who are seeking to make a fist of their life, combining its different dimensions in their own way, can feel so free to express their grief at her loss.”
Her public struggles with mental health inspired protective feelings in fans and supporters, and added to the sorrow at news of her untimely death at age 56. Although an autopsy has been completed in London, no cause of death has yet been given.
Myra Dowling, a civil servant from Dublin, had not initially planned to attend Tuesday’s procession. “I was going to just light a candle at home,” she said. “But the rain finally stopped, so I came.”
Surveying the diverse gathering of people that had come together to pay their respects — young and old, men and women, religious and secular, gay and straight — Ms. Dowling noted that everyone was there “for their own reasons.” In her own case, she had been “a huge fan back in the day,” she said, and had shaved her head in 1990, emulating Ms. O’Connor’s defiantly shorn look.
“She gave us permission,” Ms. Dowling said, “to do anything we wanted.”
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