A VOICE

We are currently living in a world filled with great turmoil, cruelty, and uncertainty. I don’t offer these pages for political discourse; I share those thoughts elsewhere, but hope that these pages offer inspiration during troubled times. We need heroes. We need to know those who have a voice and use it. We need to understand that voice must be used to speak truth to power. Through the centuries and currently, many of those voices belong to women! 

We all probably know her name and certainly her music, but how much do we really know about her? Sinéad Marie Bernadette O’Connor was born on December 8, 1966 in Dublin, Ireland. She was the third of five children. Her father was a structural engineer who eventually became a barrister. Her mother was a housewife. Sinead’s older brother, Joseph, became a popular novelist. 

In her 2021 memoir, Rememberings,Sinéad writes she was regularly beaten by her mother, who also taught her to steal from the collection basket at church. When she was thirteen, she was sent to live with her father, whose new bride Viola, was from Alexandria, Virginia. Her’s was a troubled life and at fifteen, she was often truant and found shoplifting. 

A court order placed her at a training center, run by sisters of Our Lady of Charity, for a year and a half. Sinead thrived during her time there honing her talents for writing and music. However, she resisted the imposed strict rules and regulations…"if you were bad, they sent you upstairs to sleep in the old folks’ home. You’re in there in the pitch black, you can smell the shit and the puke and everything, and these old women are moaning in their sleep  ... I have never—and probably will never—experience such panic and terror and agony over anything.”

In February 1985, Sinéad's mother died in an auto accident. She wrote an open letter in The Irish Times in 1993 where she asked people to “stop hurting” her. The letter repeated accusations of child abuse by her parents. “If only I can fight off the voices of my parents / and gather a sense of self-esteem / Then I’ll be able to REALLY sing …Our family is very messed up. We can’t communicate with each other. We are all in agony. I for one am in agony…” Clearly she was still wrestling with her demons resulting from “extreme and violent abuse, both emotional and physical,” according to her brother, Joseph. 

During her time at the convent school, Sinéad found release through songwriting and singing. She was clearly talented, and her tortured soul used this medium to express her pain. Sinead O’Connor’s musical career flourished in the 1980s, with performances in various bands. While with the band In Too Nua, she recorded, and the band received many positive reviews, but critics considered Sinéad's stage presence and voice the strongest features of the band. Dropping out of school, she continued to follow her heart and made music. She also became outspoken and made political comments defending the provisional IRA, and referred to U2’s music as “bombastic.” Later in her life, she said that she had been “too young to understand the tense situation in Northern Ireland properly.” 

Sinéad's growing notoriety led her to record her first album, The Lion and the Cobra, in 1987; it was a big hit on its release. She appeared on the David Letterman Show the following year. In 1989, Sinead wrote music and starred in the Northern Irish film Hush-a-Bye Baby. 

Sinéad's career flourished in America and her political and world views became more intense. She withdrew from Saturday Night Live after discovering Andrew Dice Clay, whom she considered “disrespectful to women,” was the producer. She stated in a letter to the Recording Academy her refusal to attend the ceremony or accept the award, writing that “the industry promoted materialistic values over artistic merit.”

In 1992, Sinéad appeared on Saturday Night Live, where she staged a moving protest against the Catholic Church. She performed an a cappella version of Bob Marley’s song, “War.” She changed the lyrics to ones that related to child abuse. At the conclusion, she tore up a photograph of Pope John II, one taken from her mother’s bedroom wall. She said “fight the real enemy!” Then threw the pieces to the ground. Sinead felt strongly that “the Catholic Church bore some responsibility for the physical, sexual, and emotional abuse” that she had suffered as a child. She said that the church has destroyed “entire races of people” and that Catholic priests had been abusing children for years. It was nine years before Pope John Paul II publicly acknowledged child sexual abuse within the Catholic Church. 

Of course, this protest stirred enormous protest from many institutions. Sinéad wrote it was more important for her to “be a protest singer than a successful pop star. Time Magazine named Sinead O’Connor the most influential woman of 1992 for her protest. She used her voice not just for her aggrandizement but for truth and social justice. She said, “I don’t do anything in order to cause trouble. It just so happens that what I do naturally causes trouble. I am proud to be a troublemaker.”

This piece touches on a mere few of her many accomplishments. Somehow I think she would consider her troublemaking her greatest! This woman was a genuine hero. 

Forgotten Ireland, March 2025: 

Sinéad O’Connor was more than just a musician, she was a soul who never stopped caring for others. While the world often focused on the controversies, those who knew her saw the kindness that defined her.

She had a deep compassion for people experiencing homelessness. Over the years, she was known to quietly help those in need, sometimes paying for hotel rooms or offering support in ways that never made the headlines. She once tweeted about inviting homeless women into her home during the winter, showing her deep empathy for those struggling. She didn’t do it for attention, just because she believed it was the right thing to do.

Sinéad also had a way of lifting up fellow musicians. A young singer-songwriter, Damien Dempsey, was struggling to get his music heard when Sinéad took him under her wing. She invited him to record in London, collaborated on his songs, and brought him on tour, helping him reach a wider audience. She once said about him, "I don’t think there’s ever been anyone like him. I think he represents the sort of voice in Ireland that is not allowed to be heard." Her support helped launch his career, and he never forgot her kindness.

Sinéad had a voice that could shake the world, but it was her heart that left the biggest mark. Through all the highs and lows, she never stopped fighting for others. A true soul, gone too soon, but never forgotten.