The Irish musician wrote that she had been living as an “undead night creature” since her son died in 2022
By Ilana Kaplan
Updated on July 26, 2023 04:20PM EDT
Sinéad O’Connor’s last post on social media gave fans insight into her emotional struggles since her son Shane died by suicide at 17 in 2022.
Hi All, recently moved back to London after 23 years absence. Very happy to be home : ) Soon finishing my album….
Posted by Sinéad O'Connor on Tuesday, July 11, 2023
In a tweet on July 17 from a now-deleted Twitter account she started, O’Connor — who died aged 56 on Wednesday — wrote, “Been living as undead night creature since. He was the love of my life, the lamp of my soul. We were one soul in two halves. He was the only person who ever loved me unconditionally. I am lost in the bardo without him.”
The Irish musician shared the news of his death at the time in a series of tweets.
“My beautiful son, Nevi’im Nesta Ali Shane O’Connor, the very light of my life, decided to end his earthly struggle today and is now with God. May he rest in peace and may no one follow his example. My baby. I love you so much. Please be at peace,” she wrote.
Sinéad O’Connor Reveals Her 17-Year-Old Son Has Died After Going Missing: ‘Please Be at Peace’
On July 8, O’Connor had shared a clip of her apartment, referencing the toll her son’s death had taken on her.
“I look like s— either way, which is why I didn’t want to make a video … but you know, the way your kid unfortunately passing away, it isn’t good for one’s body, or soul to be fair,” she said in the video per TMZ.
Three days later, she had shared a more uplifting post to Facebook where she gave fans an update on new music.
O’Connor said that she had returned to London and was working on an album. She also told followers that she would be “hopefully touring” in 2024 and 2025.
“Hi All, recently moved back to London after 23 years absence. Very happy to be home : ) Soon finishing my album. Release early next year : ) Hopefully Touring Australia and New Zealand toward end 2024. Europe, USA and other territories beginning early 2025 : ) #TheBitchIsBack,” she wrote.
O’Connor broke through the music industry in 1990 with her No. 1 hit “Nothing Compares 2 U,” which was written and composed by Prince. Prior to her death, she’d released 10 albums, most recently 2014’s I’m Not Bossy, I’m the Boss.
Over the years, the singer became well-known for her activism and was open about her spirituality, as well as her mental health struggles.
Sinéad O’Connor Dead at 56
O’Connor’s death was first reported by The Irish Times.
“It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of our beloved Sinéad,” her family confirmed in a statement to RTE. “Her family and friends are devastated and have requested privacy at this very difficult time.”
A rep for O’Connor did not immediately reply to PEOPLE’s request for comment.
https://people.com/sinead-oconnor-heartbreaking-social-media-post-late-son-shane-days-before-death-7565937
25 years on, here’s why Sinead O’Connor deserves praise for ripping up a photo of the Pope
“She spoke truth to power at a time when it was unfashionable and paid a hefty price for it.”
Oct 6th 2017, 5:00 PM
Sinead_rips_into_the_Pope
THIS WEEK MARKED the 25th anniversary of Sinead O’Connor’s now iconic performance on Saturday Night Live in which she ripped up a photo of Pope John Paul II and defiantly declared, “Fight the real enemy.”
The singer was performing a stark acapella rendition of Bob Marley’s War when she produced a photo of the Vatican leader and shred it into tiny pieces while staring straight down the camera. The studio audience greeted the singer with deathly silence and the provocation made headline news the next day with the New York Daily News labelling her a “holy terror”.
The fallout was swift. Students from University of Notre Dame, a Catholic university, called on NBC to apologise for rebroadcasting it and called it an act of religious intolerance. The following week, Joe Pesci appeared on Saturday Night Live and condemned the incident and said that had it happened on his watch, he would have given her “such a smack”.
A few weeks later, O’Connor was part of a start-studded lineup paying tribute to Bob Dylan. After being brought to the stage by Kris Kristofferson, she was drowned out by sustained jeers and boos.
Per a New York Times report at the time:
She walked on stage to mixed applause and boos, the result of her tearing up a picture of the Pope when she performed on “Saturday Night Live.” She stared at the crowd, silently, twice signaling the band to stop when it began playing “I Believe in You” while the audience noise continued.
She ended up performing War once more and reportedly left the stage in tears.
A few weeks after her appearance on Saturday Night Live, O’Connor defended her actions and issued a powerful open letter in which she linked the abuse she experienced as a child to the influence exerted by the Catholic Church in Ireland.
It must be acknowledged what was done to us so we can forgive and be free. If the truth remains hidden then the brutality under which I grew up will continue for thousands of Irish children. And I must by any means necessary WITHOUT the use of violence prevent that happening because I am a Christian.
The Catholic Church have controlled us by controlling education. Through their teachings on sexuality, marriage, birth control and abortion. And most spectacularly through the lies they taught us with their history books.
In June 1993, she reiterated that the gesture was intended to highlight abuses facilitated and ignored by the Catholic Church. “I tore up the Pope’s picture to draw attention to the issue of child abuse that the Vatican ignores,” she told The Guardian in response to claims that she did it for publicity.
The same article notes that record sales in the United States “virtually ground to a halt” following the Pope incident.
Sinead R Stone Rolling Stone
A quarter of a century and countless shocking revelations later, Sinead O’Connor has been largely vindicated. Looking back on her statements, it’s hard to see what was so controversial. In fact, her comments read fairly reasonably in light of what we now know.
But her outburst came at a time when the widespread nature of abuse in the Catholic Church had yet to be widely acknowledged. After all, it was seven years before Mary Raftery’s groundbreaking States of Fear was broadcast and a decade before the Boston Globe published their Spotlight investigation into abuses perpetrated by the Catholic Church.
Many accused her of religious intolerance, failing to recognise that she was criticising an institution as opposed to a faith. She was the subject of countless op-eds and talk radio debates, and ended up leaving the United States the following year to settle back home in Dublin.
An appearance on RTÉ’s Kenny Live in December 1992 indicated that she was somewhat shaken by the backlash. At the end of the interview, which focused on child abuse, she thanked Pat Kenny for simply being “nice” to her.
In the years since, Sinead O’Connor has endured her fair share of ups and downs. She has struggled with her mental health, often very publicly, and has had every facet of her life closely scrutinised in the press.
She has also been dismissed time and time again as a “crazy bitch”. Indeed, she once placed an ad in the Irish Examiner pleading with Irish media to leave her alone and outlined how “it’s become a national pastime treating Sinead O’Connor like a crazy bitch”.
There was an element of this after her appearance on Saturday Night Live. “That Sinead O’Connor. She’s a bit… mad.”
Looking back, however, it’s clear that she was simply ahead of her time and sharing truths that the world was neither ready to accept nor acknowledge, particularly when the messenger was a bolshy 25-year-old woman.
Sinead O’Connor spoke truth to power at a time when it was unfashionable and paid a hefty price for it, both professionally and emotionally.
On this anniversary, let’s take a moment to applaud her courage and willingness to put everything on the line in the name of calling out a Pope the New Yorker has since described as “the single figure most responsible” for ignoring child sexual abuse within the Church.
To Sinead. One of our best.
https://www.irishcentral.com/opinion/niallodowd/sinead-oconnor-pope-picture
