Sinéad O'Connor

Shuhada' Sadaqat (previously Magda Davitt; born Sinéad Marie Bernadette O'Connor, 8 December 1966 – July 2023) was an Irish singer and musician.

Her debut album, The Lion and the Cobra, was released in 1987 and charted internationally. Her second album, I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got, received glowing reviews upon release and became her biggest success, selling over seven million copies worldwide. Its lead single, "Nothing Compares 2 U" (written by Prince), was named the number one world single in 1990 by the Billboard Music Awards.

She released ten studio albums: 1992's Am I Not Your Girl? and 1994's Universal Mother both went gold in the UK,] 2000's Faith and Courage received gold status in Australia, and 2005's Throw Down Your Arms went gold in Ireland. Her work also includes songs for films, collaborations with many other artists, and appearances at charity fundraising concerts. Her 2021 memoir Rememberings was a best seller.

Throughout her music career she had been unabashedly honest about her spiritual journey, activism, socio-political views, as well as her trauma and mental health struggles.

In 1999, she 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, anti-racism, organised religion, and women's rights. In 2017, O'Connor changed her name to Magda Davitt.

After converting to Islam in 2018, she changed it to Shuhada' Sadaqat. However, she continued to record and perform under her birth name.

Spouses

• John Reynolds (1989–1991)
• Nick Sommerlad (2001–2002)
• Steve Cooney (2010–2011)
• Barry Herridge (2011–2011)

Partners

• Peter Gabriel (1992–1993)
• Prince (1990)
• Richard Heslop (1994–1995)
• John Waters (1995–1996)
• Dónal Lunny (2004)
• Frank Bonadio (2006–2007)

Early life

O'Connor was born in the Cascia House Nursing Home at 13 Pembroke Road, Dublin, on 8 December 1966. She was named Sinéad after Sinéad de Valera, the mother of the doctor presiding over the delivery, Eamonn de Valera, and Bernadette in honour of Saint Bernadette of Lourdes. She is the third of five children; her siblings are novelist Joseph, Eimear, John, and Eoin.

Her parents are 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 the Church of Our Lady of Good Counsel, Drimnagh, Dublin in 1960. In 1979, O'Connor left her mother and went to live with her father, who had married Viola Margaret Suiter (née 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 eighteen 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 1985 aged 45 as she lost control of her car on an icy road and crashed into a bus, when O'Connor was eighteen.

In June 1993, O'Connor wrote a public letter in The Irish Times which 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". O'Connor said that month, "Our family is very messed up. We can't communicate with each other. We are all in agony. I for one am in agony."

Personal life

Name

In 2017, she changed her legal name to Magda Davitt, saying in an interview that she wished to be "free of the patriarchal slave names. Free of the parental curses." On her conversion to Islam in October 2018, she adopted the name Shuhada, and before mid-2019 also changed her surname from Davitt to Sadaqat.

Personal and public image

While her shaved head was initially an assertion against traditional views of women, years later, O'Connor said she had begun to grow her hair back, but that after being asked if she was Enya, O'Connor shaved it off again. "I don't feel like me unless I have my hair shaved. So even when I'm an old lady, I'm going to shave it."

Marriages and children

O'Connor has had four children and has been married 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 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.

Soon after the birth of her daughter Brigidine Roisin Waters on 10 March 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 of marriage. 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 22 July 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 9 December 2011, in Las Vegas, but their marriage ended after having "lived together for 7 days only". The following week, on 3 January 2012, O'Connor issued a further string of internet comments to the effect that the couple had re-united.

On 18 July 2015, her first grandson was born to her son Jake Reynolds and his girlfriend Lia.

On 7 January 2022, two days after her 17-year-old son Shane was reported missing from Newbridge, County Kildare, he was found dead by the police in Bray, County Wicklow. 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". O'Connor criticised Ireland's family services agency, Tusla, and the national health authority, the HSE, with regard to their handling of her son's case. Three days later, O'Connor apologised to Tusla, saying "Ok, I'm gonna do the right thing here and apologise for my lashing out. Tusla are working with very limited resources. They loved Shane. They are broken-hearted. They are human. I am sorry I have upset them." She added, "Tusla did their best. We all did: and I am deeply sorry to have blamed anyone." In January 2022, a week after her son's suicide, she was hospitalised on her own volition following a series of tweets in which she indicated she was going to take her own life.

Health

On a 4 October 2007, broadcast of The Oprah Winfrey Show, O'Connor disclosed that she had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder four years earlier, and had attempted suicide on her 33rd birthday on 8 December 1999. Then, on Oprah: Where Are They Now? of 9 February 2014, O'Connor said that she had received three "second opinions" and was told by all three that she was not bipolar.

She has also been diagnosed with complex post-traumatic stress disorder and borderline personality disorder.

In August 2015, she announced that she was to undergo a hysterectomy after suffering with gynaecological problems for over three years. O'Connor would later blame the hospital's refusal to administer hormonal replacement therapy after the operation as the main reason for her mental health issues in the subsequent years, stating "I was flung into surgical menopause. Hormones were everywhere. I became very suicidal. I was a basket case."

Having smoked cannabis for 30 years, O'Connor went to a rehabilitation center in 2016, to end her addiction. O'Connor is an agoraphobic.

In August 2017, O'Connor posted a 12-minute video on her Facebook page in which she stated that she has felt alone since losing custody of her 13-year-old son, Shane, that for the prior two years she had wanted to kill herself, with only her doctor and psychiatrist "keeping her alive". The month after her Facebook post, O'Connor appeared on the American television talk show Dr. Phil on the show's 16th season debut episode. According to Dr. Phil, O'Connor wanted to do the interview because she wanted to "destigmatize mental illness," noting the prevalence of mental health issues among musicians. Shane died in January 2022. A week later, following a series of tweets in which she indicated that she was going to kill herself, O'Connor was hospitalised.

Sexuality

In a 2000 interview in Curve, O'Connor commented, "I'm a dyke... although I haven't been very open about that and throughout most of my life I've gone out with blokes because I haven't necessarily been terribly comfortable about being a big lesbian mule. But I actually am a dyke." However, soon after in an interview in The Independent, she stated, "I believe it was overcompensating of me to declare myself a lesbian. It was not a publicity stunt. I was trying to make someone else feel better. And have subsequently caused pain for myself. I am not in a box of any description." In a magazine article and in a programme on RTÉ (Ryan Confidential, broadcast on RTÉ on 29 May 2003), she stated that while most of her sexual relationships had been with men, she has had three relationships with women.

Politics

O'Connor is a vocal supporter of a united Ireland, and called on the left-wing republican Sinn Féin party to be "braver". In December 2014 it was reported O'Connor had joined Sinn Féin. O'Connor has called for the "demolition" of the Republic of Ireland and its replacement with a new, united country. She has also called for key Sinn Féin politicians like Gerry Adams to step down because "they remind people of violence", referring to the Troubles.

In a 2015 interview with the BBC, O'Connor wished that Ireland had remained under British rule (which ended after the Irish War of Independence, except for Northern Ireland), because the church took over the country instead. Following the Brexit referendum in 2016, O'Connor wrote on Facebook "Ireland is officially no longer owned by Britain".

Religion

In the late 1990s, Bishop Michael Cox of the Irish Orthodox Catholic and Apostolic Church (an Independent Catholic group not in communion with the Catholic Church) ordained O'Connor as a priest. The Roman Catholic Church considers ordination of women to be invalid and asserts that a person attempting the sacrament of ordination upon a woman incurs excommunication. The bishop had contacted her to offer ordination following her appearance on the RTÉ's Late Late Show, during which she told the presenter, Gay Byrne, that had she not been a singer, she would have wished to have been a Catholic priest. After her ordination, she indicated that she wished to be called Mother Bernadette Mary.

In August 2018, via an open letter, she asked Pope Francis to excommunicate her, as she had asked of Pope Benedict XVI and Pope John Paul II.

In a July 2007 interview with Christianity Today, O'Connor stated that she considers herself a Christian and that she believes in core Christian concepts about the Trinity and Jesus Christ. She said, "I think God saves everybody whether they want to be saved or not. So when we die, we're all going home... I don't think God judges anybody. He loves everybody equally." In an October 2002 interview, she credited her Christian faith in giving her the strength to live through and overcome the effects of her child abuse.

On 26 March 2010, O'Connor appeared on Anderson Cooper 360° to speak out about the Catholic sexual abuse scandal in Ireland. On 28 March 2010, she had an opinion piece published in the Sunday edition of The Washington Post in which she wrote about the scandal and her time in a Magdalene laundry as a teenager. Writing for the Sunday Independent she labelled the Vatican as "a nest of devils" and called for the establishment of an "alternative church", opining that "Christ is being murdered by liars" in the Vatican. Shortly after the election of Pope Francis she described the office of the Pope as an "anti-Christian office".

O'Connor stated:

Well, you know, I guess I wish everyone the best, and I don't know anything about the man, so I'm not going to rush to judge him on one thing or another, but I would say he has a scientifically impossible task, because all religions, but certainly the Catholic Church, is really a house built on sand, and it's drowning in a sea of conditional love, and therefore it can't survive, and actually the office of Pope itself is an anti-Christian office, the idea that Christ needs a representative is laughable and blasphemous at the same time, therefore it is a house built on sand, and we need to rescue God from religion, all religions, they've become a smokescreen that distracts people from the fact that there is a holy spirit, and when you study the Gospels you see the Christ character came to tell us that we only need to talk directly to God, we never needed Religion…

Asked whether from her point of view, it is therefore irrelevant who is elected to be Pope, O'Connor replied,

Genuinely I don't mean disrespect to Catholic people because I believe in Jesus Christ, I believe in the Holy Spirit, all of those, but I also believe in all of them, I don't think it cares if you call it Fred or Daisy, you know? Religion is a smokescreen, it has everybody talking to the wall. There is a Holy Spirit who can't intervene on our behalf unless we ask it. Religion has us talking to the wall. The Christ character tells us himself: you must only talk directly to the Father; you don't need intermediaries. We all thought we did, and that's ok, we're not bad people, but let's wake up… God was there before religion; it's there [today] despite religion; it'll be there when religion is gone.

Tatiana Kavelka has written about O'Connor's later Christian work which is "theologically charged yet unorthodox, oriented toward interfaith dialogue and those on the margins."

In October 2018, O'Connor converted to Islam, calling it "the natural conclusion of any intelligent theologian's journey". The ceremony was conducted in Ireland by Sunni Islamic theologian Shaykh Umar Al-Qadri. She also changed her name to Shuhada' Davitt. In a message on Twitter, she thanked fellow Muslims for their support and uploaded a video of herself reciting the adhan, the Islamic call to prayer. She also posted photos of herself wearing a hijab.

Memoir

O'Connor's memoir, Rememberings, was published in June 2021. Neil McCormick in The Daily Telegraph wrote that it was a "brave, wry new memoir" with "humour and perspective". 'The Guardian wrote that it was a memoir "full of heart, humour and remarkable generosity".

Discography

• 1987: The Lion and the Cobra
• 1990: I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got
• 1992: Am I Not Your Girl?
• 1994: Universal Mother
• 1997: Gospel Oak (EP)
• 2000: Faith and Courage
• 2002: Sean-Nós Nua
• 2005: Throw Down Your Arms
• 2007: Theology
• 2012: How About I Be Me (and You Be You)?
• 2014: I'm Not Bossy, I'm the Boss
• Upcoming: No Veteran Dies Alone

***

Sinéad Marie Bernadette O’Connor was born on Dec. 8, 1966, in Glenageary, County Dublin, Ireland, to Sean and Marie O’Connor, who split when the singer was 8 years old. She claimed over the years that she and her two siblings were physically abused when they went to live with their mother after the divorce. Her teenage years were spent getting sent to reform schools and boarding schools due to bouts of shoplifting and other bad behavior and her discovery at 15 by the drummer for the Irish band Tua Nua, who heard her singing Barbra Streisand’s “Evergreen” at a wedding.

O’Connor studied voice and piano at Dublin’s College of Music before moving to London in the early 1980s, where she collaborated with U2 guitarist the Edge on a song for the soundtrack to 1986’s The Captive.

Her career was marked by an unpredictability, including the pop standards album she released in 1992, Am I Not Your Girl?, which failed to reach the success of its predecessors and began a slow commercial decline. She laid low for several years after the SNL incident — and another one shortly after in which she was roundly booed at a Bob Dylan tribute concert in New York — returning in 1994 with the underappreciated Universal Mother solid, which featured a moving Nirvana cover (“All Apologies”) and several songs that laid brutally bare her fierce drive to protect children from dangerous mothers.

The years that followed included stories about her retirement, a permanent ban on talking to the press, a return to her Irish folk roots on 2000’s Faith and Courage  and 2002’s Sean-Nós Nua, a detour into covers of reggae songs on 2005’s Throw Down Your Arms and  2007’s two-disc Theology collection. O’Connor’s final album, 2014’s I’m Not Bossy, I’m the Boss, was widely praised for its return to her honest, emotionally charged songwriting and unique pop craft. 

O’Connor had been very open about her mental health issues, which include a misdiagnosis of bipolar disorder, later amended to PTSD, including depression and suicidal tendencies, canceling a tour in 2012 after a doctor ordered her to get some rest following what was described as a “very serious breakdown.”

In January 2022, the singer suffered a massive loss when her 17-year-old son, Shane, was found dead in Ireland after she reported him missing to authorities. The singer-songwriter tweeted that he “the very light of my life, decided to end his earthly struggle today and is now with God.