Sinéad O'Connor

Her parents were John Oliver "Seán" O'Connor, a structural engineer later turned barrister and chairperson of the Divorce Action Group, and Johanna Marie O'Grady (1939–1985), who married in 1960 at the Church of Our Lady of Good Counsel, Drimnagh, Dublin.

She attended Dominican College Sion Hill school in Blackrock, County Dublin.

In her 2021 memoir, Rememberings, O'Connor wrote that she was regularly beaten by her mother, who also taught her to steal from the collection plate at Mass and from charity tins.

Shuhada' Sadaqat (8 December 1966 – 26 July 2023), born Sinéad Marie Bernadette O'Connor ( and commonly known as Sinéad O'Connor, was an Irish singer, songwriter, and activist. Her debut studio album, The Lion and the Cobra, was released in 1987 and achieved international chart success. Her 1990 album, I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got, was her biggest commercial success, selling over seven million copies worldwide. Its lead single, "Nothing Compares 2 U", was honoured as the top world single of the year at the Billboard Music Awards.

Sinéad Marie Bernadette O'Connor was born on 8 December 1966 at the Cascia House Nursing Home on Baggot Street in Dublin.

She was named Sinéad after Sinéad de Valera, the mother of the doctor who presided over her delivery (Éamon de Valera, Jnr.), and Bernadette in honour of Saint Bernadette of Lourdes.

She was the third of five children; an older brother is the novelist Joseph O'Connor.

In 1979, at age 13, O'Connor went to live with her father, who had recently returned to Ireland after marrying Viola Margaret Suiter in Alexandria, Virginia, United States, in 1976.

At the age of 15, following her acts of shoplifting and truancy, O'Connor was placed for 18 months in a Magdalene asylum, the Grianán Training Centre in Drumcondra, which was run by the Order of Our Lady of Charity.

She thrived in certain aspects, particularly in the development of her writing and music, but she chafed under the imposed conformity of the asylum, despite being given freedoms not granted to the other girls, such as attending an outside school and being allowed to listen to music, write songs, etc. For punishment, O'Connor described how "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."

Through an ad she placed in Hot Press in mid-1984, she met Colm Farrelly.

Together they recruited a few other members and formed a band, Ton Ton Macoute.

The band moved to Waterford briefly while O'Connor attended Newtown School, but she soon dropped out of school and followed them to Dublin, where their performances received positive reviews.

Their sound was inspired by Farrelly's interest in world music, though most observers thought O'Connor's singing and stage presence were the band's strongest features.

O'Connor's time with Ton Ton Macoute brought her to the attention of the music industry, and she was eventually signed by Ensign Records.

She also acquired an experienced manager, Fachtna Ó Ceallaigh, former head of U2's Mother Records.

Soon after she was signed, she embarked on her first major assignment, providing the vocals for the song "Heroine", which she co-wrote with the U2 guitarist the Edge for the soundtrack to the film Captive.

Ó Ceallaigh, who had been fired by U2 for complaining about them in an interview, was outspoken with his views on music and politics, and O'Connor adopted the same habits; she defended the actions of the Provisional IRA and said U2's music was "bombastic".

She later retracted her IRA comments saying they were based on nonsense, and that she was "too young to understand the tense situation in Northern Ireland properly".

She later attended Maryfield College in Drumcondra, and Newtown School in Waterford for fifth and sixth year as a boarder, but did not sit the Leaving Certificate in 1985.

On 10 February 1985, when O'Connor was 18, her mother died in a car accident, aged 45, after losing control of her car on an icy road in Ballybrack and crashing into a bus.

O'Connor's first album, The Lion and the Cobra, was "a sensation" when it was released in 1987 on Chrysalis Records.

O'Connor named Bob Dylan, David Bowie, Bob Marley, Siouxsie and the Banshees, and the Pretenders as the artists who influenced her on her debut album.

The single "Mandinka" was a college radio hit in the United States, and "I Want Your (Hands on Me)" received both college and urban play in a remixed form that featured rapper MC Lyte.

The song "Troy" was also released as a single in the UK, Ireland, and the Netherlands, where it reached number 5 on the Dutch Top 40 chart.

In her first US network television appearance, O'Connor sang "Mandinka" on Late Night with David Letterman in 1988.

O'Connor achieved chart success with Am I Not Your Girl? (1992) and Universal Mother (1994), both certified gold in the UK, as well as Faith and Courage (2000), certified gold in Australia.

During a Saturday Night Live performance in 1992, she tore up a photograph of Pope John Paul II to protest against abuse in the Catholic Church, sparking controversy.

Throughout her musical career, she openly discussed her spiritual journey, activism, socio-political viewpoints, and her experiences with trauma and struggles with mental health.

In June 1993, O'Connor wrote a public letter in The Irish Times in which she asked people to "stop hurting" her: "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 ..."

The letter repeated accusations of abuse by her parents as a child which O'Connor had made in interviews.

Her brother Joseph defended their father to the newspaper but agreed regarding their mother's "extreme and violent abuse, both emotional and physical".

That month, Sinéad said: "Our family is very messed up. We can't communicate with each other. We are all in agony. I for one am in agony."

One of the volunteers at the Grianán centre was the sister of Paul Byrne, the drummer for the band In Tua Nua, who heard O'Connor singing "Evergreen" by Barbra Streisand.

She recorded a song with them called "Take My Hand" but they felt that at 15, she was too young to join the band.

Throw Down Your Arms (2005) achieved gold status in Ireland.

Her career encompassed songs for films, collaborations with numerous artists, and appearances at charity fundraising concerts.

O'Connor's memoir, Rememberings, was released in 2021 and became a bestseller.

O'Connor drew attention to issues such as child abuse, human rights, racism, organised religion, and women's rights.

After converting to Islam in 2018, she adopted the name Shuhada' Sadaqat while continuing to perform and record under her birth name.