Sinéad O’Connor leaves behind an iconic career in music (Picture: AP)
Sinéad O’Connor has sadly died at the age of 56, leaving behind a truly iconic legacy.
The Irish musician’s death was confirmed on Tuesday night (July 25), with tributes soon flooding social media from fans and famous faces who admired her work.
Her death comes a year after her son Shane died by suicide aged just 17.
O’Connor then decided to step out of the spotlight for the rest of this year, choosing not to perform as she mourned his loss.
The singer started off in the 1980s, forming a band called Ton Ton Macoute along with Colm Farrelly, who found an ad she placed in Hot Press mid-1984.
She ended up dropping out of school to follow the band to Dublin and received glowing reviews for their performances, with O’Connor’s stage presence and vocals the main talking points.
The singer has sadly died at the age of 56 (Picture: Kim Haughton/REX/Shutterstock)
From there, O’Connor received a record deal of her own, going on to release 10 albums throughout her career.
O’Connor’s debut album, The Lion and the Cobra, was released in 1987 and charted internationally.
She cited the likes of Bob Dylan, David Bowie, and Bob Marley as her musical influences at the time.
Her second album, I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got, became a major success, seven over seven million copies worldwide.
The lead single, Nothing Compares 2 U, was written by Prince and was named the number one world single in 1990 by the Billboard Music Awards, and it’s undoubtedly still O’Connor’s most famous track.
Her later albums included Am I Not Your Girl? (1992), Universal Mother (1994), Faith and Courage (2000), and Throw Down Your Arms (2005), all of which received accolades in various countries across the globe.
O’Connor got her start in music as a teenager and was signed to a record label (Picture: Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic)
During her music career, O’Connor collaborated with some major stars, from duetting with Mary J. Blige to collaborating with U2 frontman Bono.
In November 2014, she joined the charity supergroup Band Aid 30 along with the likes of One Direction, Ellie Goulding, Sam Smith and Ed Sheeran for a new version of Do They Know It’s Christmas? to raise money for the West African Ebola virus epidemic.
Come June 2021, O’Connor had announced her immediate retirement from the music industry.
At the time, she was gearing up to release her final studio album, No Veteran Dies Alone, in October 2022.
However, she said she would not be touring or promoting the record.
Writing on Twitter at the time, she said: ‘This is to announce my retirement from touring and from working in the record business. I’ve gotten older and I’m tired. So it’s time for me to hang up my nipple tassels, having truly given my all. NVDA in 2022 will be my last release. And there’ll be no more touring or promo.’
The Nothing Compares 2 U hitmaker released 10 albums to critical acclaim (Picture: Gus Stewart/Redferns)
Later that month, she retracted her original statement, describing the original announcement as ‘a knee-jerk reaction; to an insensitive interview, and confirmed that she’d be going ahead with her already planned tour for 2022.
However, the tour was eventually cancelled in the wake of her son’s death last January.
In 2021, O’Connor released a memoir titled Rememberings, which received a warm critical reception and was listed among the best books of the year by the BBC.
Her last songs released landed in February 2023, when O’Connor shared a new version of The Skye Boat Song, the theme tune for sci-fi drama series Outlander.
O’Connor made headlines on several big occasions, most notably for her appearance on Saturday Night Live in 1992.
Performing as a musical guest, O’Connor covered Bob Marley’s song War, which she chose as a protest against the sexual abuse of children in the Catholic Church.
While singing the word ‘Evil’, O’Connor held up a photo of Pop John Paul II and tore it into pieces before the camera.
‘Fight the real enemy’, she said, throwing pieces towards the lens.
The performance sparked a great number of complaints, with SNL claiming to have had no former knowledge of what her plan was, as the audience also fell silent.
Asked in 2022 if she would change what she did, O’Connor replied: ‘Hell, no!’
Writing in her memoir, she also reflected on the incident: ‘Everyone wants a pop star, see? But I am a protest singer. I just had stuff to get off my chest. I had no desire for fame.’
O’Connor was banned permanently from SNL as a result of the incident which, despite being before the days of social media and live-tweeting, went on to cement her as a revolutionary rebel.
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The Irish star leaves behind an iconic legacy.
