July 26, 2023

Goodbye to Sinéad O’Connor.


ADDED: O'Connor's last tweet:

30 comments:

Gahrie said...

A troubled soul. I hope she found peace. R.I.P.

Ice Nine said...

She had an absolutely beautiful voice. I used to "hold my nose" and listen to it.

Political Junkie said...

Loved Phil Hartman, rest his soul, playing Frank Sinatra ripping Sinead a new one.

Narr said...

Known to me only by way of SNL when SNL was sometimes worth watching. RIP anyway, weirdo.

Nice counterpoint to the pope thread!

Kate said...

Oh, dear. I hope she's finally found peace.

Lloyd W. Robertson said...

She hated the patriarchal religion she grew up with,father figures acting on arbitrary authority, a human King of the Fathers, and then an even more powerful one in the sky. Got to get free of that shit. So she became a Muslim for a while. Maybe five years or something. Nothing compares to you, Sinead.

rcocean said...

Sad to hear it. I suppose it has to do with her mental health issues. Too bad.

Anthony said...

I wasn't really a fan back at that time of that song (I admit we called her "Skinhead O'Conner"), but several years ago I accidentally acquired some of her later work, including Irish folk tunes and some explicitly Christian songs -- her versions of Silent Night and Make Me a Channel of Your Peace are simply ethereal -- and was pleasantly surprised at how much I liked them. A radio station is playing all her stuff today and I'm finding I like every single song; her voice is just excruciatingly beautiful.

She had mental health issues; she never made a secret of that, so I cut her a lot of slack in her public personae. I hope she finds the peace that seems to have eluded her in life.

Ampersand said...

I wondered, how happy is this woman,really, and what on earth could make her happy? RIP.

phantommut said...

Troubled soul, but heavens above that girl could sing.

gilbar said...

makes you (makes ME) wonder what her and GOD are talking about now.. Maybe the Pope?

Jason said...


A terrible loss. She was a phenomenal singer. She'd been struggling with mental illness her whole life, and recently lost her son to suicide.

Nobody got "inside a note" or "inside a song" like she did.

I hope she is finally finding the peace that eluded her in this life.

Go Raibh Suaimhneas Síoraí Uirthi.

lonejustice said...

This may be premature, but I'm guessing, based on my past reading of Althouse commentators, that there will be a lot of really negative posts here about O'Connor. Some are well deserved, and I admit that I never liked her.

But consider this. She dies today, and literally millions if not billions of people on earth are being informed of her death. You commentators here who denounce her, how many people on planet earth do you believe are going to be informed about your death, or otherwise give a flying fuck about your death, when YOU die? Maybe 50, 100 if you are lucky, 200 if you made a difference in this world? Otherwise, nobody in the whole damn world will give a flying fuck on the day when you die and are buried or cremated. So keep this in mind when you post your negative comments about O'Connor today.

Steven Wilson said...

Being bi polar is such a curse. Hope she RIP.

William said...

I am genuinely saddened to hear this. "She died of the fever and there was no to relieve her, sweet Molly Malone"...I've read that they used to blind nightingales and put them in small cages. Such treatment gave added melody to the tremolo of the bird's song. O'Connor fluttered and beat against the bars but had no vision of a way out. Her repugnance of the Church's attitude towards women led her to convert to Islam. I think more rosaries than Islamic prayers will be offered in remembrance and hope for her battered soul.

lonejustice said...

She had real talent and a beautiful voice. I disagreed with her politics, but I will never forget her significant contributions to music.

Haters are going to hate her here on Althouse blog, just like they do every day here for people they don't like for their politics, so go ahead commentators, and have your 2 minutes of hate. Big Brother would be proud of you.

Me, I'm going to remember her for her music, like the video that Althouse posted. RIP.

Lilly, a dog said...

She will always be one of pop music's great beauties. I really love "Blood of Eden," her duet with Peter Gabriel.

Aggie said...

No info out there, except that she was despondent over her son's suicide last year. Did she take her own life?

Iman said...

Hope she finally finds some peace she can rest in

Gahrie said...

Haters are going to hate her here on Althouse blog, just like they do every day here for people they don't like for their politics, so go ahead commentators, and have your 2 minutes of hate. Big Brother would be proud of you.

Someone is wrong as usual and owes the rest of us an apology.

Mason G said...

This may be premature, but I'm guessing, based on my past reading of Althouse commentators, that there will be a lot of really negative posts here about O'Connor.

Nailed it, Kreskin. Don't give up your day job.

Marcus Bressler said...

Mentally illness is a bitch and then you die.

MarcusB. THEOLDMAN

Anthony said...

Jason said...

Nobody got "inside a note" or "inside a song" like she did.


I was thinking that today; a lot of the songs she did I'll always consider Hers.

KellyM said...

Adding Sinead to my daily rosary prayer list. Along with all the other souls in holy Purgatory. Poor thing. She was fighting a lot of personal demons. I hope her soul eventually finds peace.

Wince said...

Kris Kristofferson said to her “Don’t let the bastards get you down” while O’Connor was relentlessly booed off the stage by the Bob Dylan tribute show audience due to her tearing up the Pope’a photo earlier on SNL.

Yancey Ward said...

Lonejustice making a fool of himself once again, I see.

Political Junkie said...

Lonejustice - I disagree with your take. When I die, there will be one person there, my wife. No one else will know. I don't want an obit. I won't be missed. But Sinead was a piece of shit. She had a nice voice, ok. But she was a piece of shit.

Enigma said...

I try to not speak ill of the dead. She had some great songs and a troubled life. Regarding various comments above:

- She shaved her head "Skinhead O'Cueball" because the record label tried to turn her into a sexy pop-tart. Make-up, dancing, revealing clothes, etc. She wasn't that type and shaved her head to create a lesbian / cultist / cancer-survivor vibe. Shen then ran with the look. For a similar history consider that John Mellencamp was forced to be "Johnny Cougar" by the producer for his first album, and then spent the rest of his life trying to undo it. The old record industry was aggressively lowest-common-denominator. Sex sold.

- She was indeed seriously mentally ill. All her behavior must be seen in that light. Don't hate it, don't defend it. She was nuts and couldn't help it.

- Beyond "Nothing Compares 2 U", listen to "Black Boys on Mopeds" to hear her essence. It has proto-woke lyrics, but that's who she was.

BUMBLE BEE said...

Poetic...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XhDGkg8SpQ

Peter Gabriel and Sinead

gilbar said...

It was Literally Just this morning, that i realized that O'Conner isn't Enya.
I was Sad, and unhappy; thinking that Enya had died.. I'm glad she didn't
I have Absolutely NO Feelings about O'Conner.