Remembering Sinead O’Connor and Her Legacy

Singer Sinead O’Connor sadly passed away July 26th at 56 years old and leaves behind a legacy that is both equally complicated and important to preserve. A singer, writer, and activist, O’Connor led a life without apologies or ruminating in the past. She was looked up to by many and honestly lived, which is more than most can say. O’Connor was often reduced down by the media to her most outward facing acts. However, that didn’t keep her from fighting and protesting for what was right any less. O’Connor said herself in one of her memoirs: “Everyone wants a pop star, see? But I am a protest singer.”

O’Connor was notably famous for a couple of things. For one, her globally popular cover of Prince’s “Nothing Compares 2 U”, off her second studio album I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got, and the melancholy music video that accompanied it in 1990. Prior to this, O'Connor was more of an underground fave on college radio, but this single put her on the map worldwide. Billboard even named it the #1 World Single of the year.

Two years later, O’Connor was asked to be the musical guest on "Saturday Night Live", where she did a powerful a cappella cover of Bob Marley’s “War”, and concluded her performance by ripping up a picture of the Pope on live television, saying, “Fight the real enemy,” as a protest against child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. Her action was met with a stunned silence from the studio audience, and then received a ton of backlash from the media. Her CDs were smashed, celebrities like Frank Sinatra and Joe Pesci threatened violence against her, and most of her music was blacklisted in the mainstream.

Now, of course, these many years laster, the issue sexual abuse occurring in the Catholic Church is a known fact, but O’Connor called it out about 10 years before the Church was even willing to acknowledge the problem. In addition to that, O’Connor’s SNL protest was also personal. She was a survivor of childhood sexual abuse herself, and the photo of the Pope she ripped up had been her mother’s, who died in a car crash when O’Connor was 18. Having survived a traumatizing childhood, upbringing, and rise to stardom, it only felt right for O’Connor to fight what almost brought her down.

Since the beginning, O’Connor was always committed to being true to herself. In 1989, she painted Public Enemy’s Logo onto her shaved head at the Grammys in protest of them for not broadcasting the rap category. After her death, a photo of O’Connor giving an interview in a Dublin AIDS Alliance shirt 36 years before Ireland became the first nation to legalize gay marriage circulated social media. Before her 1992 "SNL" appearance, she refused to be the musical guest for Andrew Dice Clay due to the misogyny and homophobia in his standup act.

O’Connor continued to never let convictions shrink her. She was an active advocate for abortion rights in Ireland but refused abortion herself and was a proud mother of four. O’Connor was uncharacteristically funny as she was chaotic. She was extremely serious about her work and what stories she would tell. She gave credit to her Irishness and sense of solidarity that just felt particularly Irish while never compromising her values. She wrote countless songs, albums, and a couple of memoirs, highlighting the things she found beauty in while simultaneously struggling to process the trauma that ruled her childhood and parts of her adult life.

To many, O’Connor was much more than a singer, and to some, more than a human being. She was an effervescent beacon of hope and someone we could trust in a society that feels like it’s gone too far down a rabbit hole to come back from. O’Connor told the truth when no one else had the guts to. She made us laugh, cry, and brought us together, even if she had to tear us apart a little to do it. That was her way. She was never sorry about it, and in the end, I don’t think we are either.

In a 2021 interview with The Guardian, O’Connor warned the writer, “Don’t make it all misery. Just remember, my story’s not Angela’s F*cking Ashes.” So, although O’Connor’s death is untimely, and she is gone much too soon, we must remember the best parts, her funniest, insane, and most beautiful parts, that also helped shape what we are today. It’s important to preserve legacies like this one, because without people like Sinead O’Connor, without a little bit of hope and a whole lot of power pushing us, what else do we have?