Late Sinead O’Connor, the singer whose death ravaged the internet
O’Connor was born a Roman Catholic. But in 2018, she announced that she was now a “proud Muslim” and that she had adopted a new name, Shuhada Davitt (later Shuhada Sadaqat). The Irish singer-songwriter — who continued to use Sinéad O’Connor professionally — once also posted a video of her reciting Azan, the Islamic call for prayer.
And in 2019, O’Connor said on 2FM’s Dave Fanning Show, a radio programme, that being a Muslim “is a way of thinking”.
“I have been a theology student since I was about seven years of age, I never thought I would choose one religion and I left Islam until last to study because I had prejudices,” the singer said.
“But when I finally started reading it, I realised I’d been a Muslim all my life and I didn’t know it.” “Because I have to fight stigma every day in my own life (on perception around her mental health), I identify hugely with the stigma that Muslims have had to deal with. I see myself as a soldier,” O’Connor added.
She was best known for her single ‘Nothing Compares 2 U’, released in 1990, which reached number one and brought her worldwide fame. Born Sinead Marie Bernadette O’Connor in Glenageary, County Dublin, in December 1966, the singer had a difficult childhood.
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As a teenager, she was placed in Dublin’s An Grianan Training Centre, once one of the notorious Magdalene laundries, originally set up to incarcerate young girls deemed to be promiscuous.
One nun bought her a guitar and set her up with a music teacher – which led to the launch of O’Connor’s musical career. She released her first critically acclaimed album, The Lion And The Cobra in 1987, which entered the top 40 in the UK and US. Her follow-up was, I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got, which included Nothing Compares 2 U.
Written by Prince, the song reached number one around the world, including in the US and the UK.
O’Connor, who was outspoken in her social and political views, released 10 studio albums between 1987 and 2014. In 1991, she was named Artist of the Year by Rolling Stone Magazine and took home the Brit Award for international female solo artist.
The following year, one of the most notable events of her career took place when she ripped up a picture of Pope John Paul II on the US TV show Saturday Night Live, where she was the invited performer.
Following a cappella performance of Bob Marley’s War, she looked at the camera and said “Fight the real enemy”, a protest against child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church.
Her actions resulted in her being banned for life by broadcaster NBC and protests against her in the US, which saw copies of her records destroyed in New York’s Times Square.
“I’m not sorry I did it. It was brilliant,” she said in an interview with the New York Times in 2021. O’Connor’s last studio album, I’m Not Bossy, I’m The Boss, was released in 2014.
She released a memoir, Rememberings, in 2021, tragically in January 2022, her 17-year-old son Shane was found dead after being reported missing two days previously.
The singer later cancelled all live performances for the rest of 2022 due to her “continuing grief” following the death of her son. O’Connor paid tribute to Shane in one of her final tweets, calling him, “the love of my life, the lamp of my soul, we were one soul in two halves”.
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