Behind the Smile-Sinéad O’Connor
Mental Health Struggles
Having spent the first 18 years of my life living in Ireland, the passing of Sinéad O’Connor hits hard. She was apart of the culture, a trail blazer, a musician, an artist, a mother and a survivor. She was on Irish television a lot and her music seemed to be always in the background of shops and pubs of every Irish town and city. She is a national treasure and forever will be.
She was a true artist and way ahead of her time. She shot to fame in the year 1990 with the release of ‘Nothing Compares to You’, although she had already gained a lot of traction in the 80's on the Irish music scene. Along with U2, her star was rising. It all came crashing down in 1992 when, while performing on SNL, she ripped up a photo of the Pope- in protest of the horrific child sex abuse that was rampant in Ireland (and many other parts of the world) for decades and decades. She was protesting the institution and not the man. She herself understood what it was like for a childhood to be stolen.
It seemed as if, at that time, only Sinead was brave enough to talk about it publicly. Her career definitely took a hit and some argue that it never recovered- I would argue that her defiant actions and vulnerability made her the icon and heroine that she is to so many. In a very Catholic Ireland of the 90’s, the church had…
