“It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of our beloved Sinéad,” read a statement yesterday (July 26) evening. “Her family and friends are devastated and have requested privacy at this very difficult time.”
Though she released eight studio albums following the release of her biggest hit to date, 1990’s Nothing Compares 2 U, O’Connor’s career suffered immensely following a landmark appearance on the US prime-time comedy show Saturday Night Live, during which she tore up a photograph of Pope John Paul II live on television, to protest against child abuse within the Catholic church.
“There’s a tradition among Irish artists of being agitators and activists,” the singer says in Kathryn Ferguson’s new and sadly timely documentary on O’Connor, Nothing Compares. Among other things the film, which is out in the UK on 29 July, explores the late musician’s dedication to exposing abuse and highlighting racism in the music industry. Throughout her career, O’Connor used her platform and fame to draw awareness to HIV/AIDs, campaigned on pro-choice issues and abortion rights, and showed her support for the LGBTQ+ community.
As we remember an uncompromising trailblazer who wasn’t afraid to court controversy in the name of exposing abuses of power, and carved out a space for women’s rage and protest in a music industry hellbent on silencing it, here’s a look back at her life in activism.
Anti-racism campaigning
Ahead of her big breakthrough moment, with Nothing Compares 2 U, O’Connor was a huge fan of rap, enlisting local rap artists for her first US tour, and inviting MC Lyte to collaborate with her on a 1988 remix of her debut album opener I Want Your Hands On Me. Charged with the spirit and foundations of hip-hop, and underpinned by a deliciously cartoonish funk beat, the early MTV hit was a snappy, sex-positive celebration, the fun of it only bolstered by the New York rapper (still in her teens when she was given this massive platform).
The following year, O’Connor’s biggest break yet arrived when she made her primetime debut at the Grammys, performing her break-out college radio hit Mandinka (from debut album The Lion and the Cobra) at the televised awards show. That same year the Recording Academy, who had long dismissed and pushed back against the growing innovation in hip-hop, introduced a category for Best Rap Performance. Eventual winners DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince boycotted the awards over their decision not to televise the category; fellow nominees Salt-N-Pepa and LL Cool J also refused to attend it.
O’Connor used the enormous platform to shove a massive display of solidarity right down the camera lens where it could not be avoided or censored. The yellow logo of Public Enemy Ltd is a potent protest symbol; according to the group’s Chuck D, “the crosshairs logo symbolised the black man in America.” And here it was, emblazoned onto O’Connor’s shaved head, impossible to miss.
A year later, the Irish musician highlighted institutional racism and police brutality in her song Black Boys on Mopeds, and called out MTV after they avoided airing rap videos on the grounds of “obscenity”. “Censorship in any form is bad, but when it’s racism disguised as censorship, it’s even worse,” she said.
Her LGBTQ+ allyship
Speaking to the Standard to mark the release of her Sinéad O’Connor documentary Nothing Compares, director Kathryn Ferguson highlighted the strong support the Irish artist received from the LGBTQ+ community as she moved to London to pursue music in 1985. “Sinéad was surrounded by this incredible queer community in Eighties London,” the director said. “I think she was welcomed in with open arms and just found this incredibly nurturing, creative community to be part of. They really loved her and looked after her and I think she was eternally grateful for that.”
Along with other early outliers like Madonna, O’Connor campaigned to raise levels of awareness and education around HIV and AIDS in a time when many public figures shied away from a topic steeped in enormous levels of ignorance, shame, and stigma. During a 1990 appearance on The Late Late Show, the musician wore a Dublin AIDS Alliance t-shirt (the charity which would later evolve into HIV Ireland).
Pre-fame meanwhile, aged 19, O’Connor took part in ITV’s two-week long broadcast AIDS: The Last Chance, appearing in a satirical advert (with an important, real-life message) for extra-strong ‘Prophyltex’ condoms in a time when advertising the products was banned on UK television. She remained a fixture on the broadcaster’s future shows about the crisis, speaking about the latest research into the disease, and using her platform and fame to draw attention to the stories of people living with HIV or AIDS.
In 2017, O’Connor posted on Facebook in search of an organisation where she could donate “30 yrs worth of gorgeous and ordinary clothing” to Irish Trans youth. Two years later, she paired her black hijab (the singer converted to Islam in 2018) with a rainbow pride flag during an appearance on Good Morning Britain.
Exposing abuse within the Catholic church
Think of O’Connor, and one of the first moments to come to mind will likely be her brave, subversive, career-curtailing protest on Saturday Night Live. Immediately after performing Bob Marley’s protest song War, she sparked global outrage by tearing up a photograph of Pope John Paul II. The genius spark of punk brilliance was pre-planned; the photo belonged to O’Connor’s abusive mother, and to avoid tipping off producers she tore up an alternative image (of a Brazilian child killed by police) during rehearsals.
"We know we will win, we have confidence in the victory of good over evil," O’Connor sang, shredding the paper with total, unflinching composure. “Fight the enemy!” she then declared, before calmly blowing out a cluster of candles and leaving. The act was a protest against the child abuse committed and concealed by the Catholic church in Ireland.
O’Connor’s notorious appearance came just two years after her biggest hit, Nothing Compares 2 U, and a huge backlash immediately followed. Frank Sinatra declared that she should leave the US. “Her behaviour is unforgivable,” he said. SNL promptly banned her from the show, before actor Joe Pesci mocked her in a subsequent monologue.
Holding up a repaired photograph of the Pope, he said “if it was my show, I would’ve given her such a smack. I would’ve grabbed her by the eyebrows.” In the days following the show, she doubled down on her stance during a Bob Dylan tribute show at Madison Square Garden, even as thousands booed her.
"A lot of people say or think that tearing up the Pope’s photo derailed my career. That’s not how I feel about it," O’Connor later wrote in her 2021 memoir Rememberings. "I feel that having a No. 1 record derailed my career and my tearing the photo put me back on the right track."
“I’ve watched the film a million times and sat in so many of the festivals and cinema screenings,” Ferguson tells the Standard, referring to the section of Nothing Compares which shows footage of the protest and the backlash that followed. “And it’s that section [when she shows the backlash in the film], that you can hear the audible gasps in the audience because it’s horrifying. It was violent and nasty, and just also really ridiculous.
“You know, that this 20-something-woman from Dublin, caused this much of a reaction… they obviously were worried by her [otherwise] they would have just either not bothered or just left it alone. The fact there was such a visceral, furious reaction against her would really make me think there was genuine concern that she was influencing people in the way that the powers that be didn’t want her to be.”
in 1992, sinead o’connor shocked the producers of SNL when at the end of her performance, she tore up a photo of the pope to protest child sex abuse in the church. her career was totally derailed and the church’s abuse did not re-enter the national spotlight for another 10 years pic.twitter.com/MwfO73qSZv
— matt (@mattxiv) July 26, 2023
Her pro-choice campaigning
A vocal women’s rights campaigner, O’Connor became pregnant with her first child while recording her debut album The Lion and the Cobra. In her memoir, she claimed that executives at her record label pressured her to have an abortion. “Your record company has spent £100,000 recording your album. You owe it to them not to have this baby,” she claims a doctor hired by the label told her.
Defying their abhorrent requests, O’Connor refused, and gave birth to her first child Jake in 1987. In the years following his birth, she campaigned ardently for women’s right to choose, and wrote the song My Special Child about her decision to have an abortion in 1990.
“I just believe that if a child is meant to be born it will be born. It doesn’t really matter whether you have an abortion or a miscarriage. The whole issue is pro-choice,” O’Connor told Spin magazine in 1991. “I wouldn’t lobby for or against abortion, but I would lobby very strongly for the right of women to have control over their own bodies and make decisions for themselves. Nobody has the right to tell anyone else what to think or believe.”
