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11717
From: pamela, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Sinéad O'Connor's Death 'Not Being Treated as Suspicious,' Says U.K. P
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Sinéad O'Connor's Death 'Not Being Treated as Suspicious,' Says U.K. Police Story by Jenny Haward • Yesterday 4:57 AM Scotland Yard confirmed to PEOPLE on Thursday that a 56-year-old woman was found 'unresponsive' at a home in London On Thursday, a Scotland Yard spokesperson confirmed to PEOPLE that "A 56-year-old woman was pronounced dead" at a property in south London on Wednesday night. "Police were called at 11:18hrs on Wednesday, 26 July to reports of an unresponsive woman at a residential address in the SE24 area,” the Metropolitan Police added. "Next of kin have been notified. The death is not being treated as suspicious. A file will be prepared for the Coroner," the spokesperson added. A cause of death has not yet been disclosed. The death of the Irish singer, whose legacy with hits like "Nothing Compares 2 U" was complicated by her outspoken dedication to various social issues and a series of mental health struggles, was confirmed by her family on Wednesday. "It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of our beloved Sinéad," her family said in a statement to RTE and the BBC. "Her family and friends are devastated and have requested privacy at this very difficult time." The singer's death was first reported by The Irish Times. A rep for O'Connor did not immediately reply to PEOPLE's request for comment on Wednesday. O'Connor broke through in 1990 with her No. 1 hit "Nothing Compares 2 U," a song 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. Related: Sinéad O'Connor Shared Heartbreaking Post About Late Son Shane Days Before Death: 'The Lamp of My Soul' Though the song was nominated for four Grammy Awards in 1991, she boycotted that year's ceremony, writing in an open letter that the Academy "acknowledge[s] mostly the commercial side of art." Two years after her massive hit, O'Connor made headlines once more with an infamous appearance on Saturday Night Live, during which she tore up a photo of Pope John Paul II after performing an a cappella version of "War" by Bob Marley. She then told the audience to "Fight the real enemy." The gesture was O’Connor's response to the Catholic Church's alleged cover-up of the sexual abuse of children. (In the decades since, the Catholic Church has been involved in countless lawsuits involving child sexual abuse, according to the New York Times.) The stunt sparked serious backlash toward O'Connor, though she has since said she has no regrets ("A lot of people say or think that tearing up the pope's photo derailed my career. That's not how I feel about it," she wrote in her 2021 book Rememberings. "I feel that having a number-one record derailed my career and my tearing the photo put me back on the right track"). n 2021, she announced her retirement from music and touring, writing that she'd "gotten older" and was "tired." Days later, though, she reversed course, saying, "I love my job. Making music that is. I don’t like the consequences of being a talented (and outspoken woman) being that I have to wade through walls of prejudice every day to make a living." Born in Dublin on Dec. 8, 1966, O’Connor was the third of five children born to John, an engineer and lawyer, and his wife Marie. The young O’Connor’s childhood was rocky; her parents divorced, and in 2012, she told PEOPLE that her mother psychologically and physically abused her and “spent a good time trying to destroy my reproductive system.” “It was a torture chamber, really,” she said. “But I forgive my mother; she just wasn’t well.” She ran away to live with her father at age 13, but two years later, was sent to a Magdalene asylum for "unruly" women for 18 months after she was caught shoplifting. O’Connor was eventually diagnosed with bipolar disorder as well as complex post-traumatic stress disorder and borderline personality disorder. In 2015, she underwent a radical hysterectomy to treat endometriosis, which sent her into a downward spiral. "You can never predict what might trigger the [PTSD]. I describe myself as a rescue dog: I'm fine until you put me in a situation that even slightly smells like any of the trauma I went through, then I flip my lid," she told PEOPLE in 2021. "I manage very well because I've been taught brilliant skills. There was a lot of therapy. It's about focusing on the things that bring you peace as opposed to what makes you feel unstable." Facing accusations that she was an unfit mother, she tried to take her own life in 1999, reportedly swallowing 20 Valium pills on her 33rd birthday. “That was... after a session in court that day where it was suggested that for the rest of my life I would only see my daughter once a month,” she said in 2005. “I made a very serious suicide attempt, and I did almost die.” As she healed, O'Connor threw herself into motherhood and religion, becoming an ordained priest of the Latin Tridentine Church (She later announced in 2018 that she'd converted to Islam). Though she announced a retirement in 2003, explaining that she no longer wanted to be famous and wanted to live "a 'normal' life," she continued to release music. Still, her mental health struggles continued to surface, culminating in a hospitalization in 2022 after the death of her 17-year-old son, Shane. Shane, whom she shared with musician Dónal Lunny, went missing in January 2022, and O'Connor revealed days later that he'd died by suicide. Related: All About Sinéad O'Connor’s 4 Children "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," she tweeted at the time. "May he rest in peace and may no one follow his example. My baby. I love you so much. Please be at peace." In recent weeks, O'Connor appeared to be looking forward to the future, and wrote on Facebook that she was working on new music and had hopes for an international tour. "Hi All, recently moved back to London after 23 years absence. Very happy to be home : ) Soon finishing my album. Release early next year : )" she wrote on July 11. "Hopefully Touring Australia and New Zealand toward end 2024. Europe, USA and other territories beginning early 2025 : ) #TheBitchIsBack" For more People news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter! Read the original article on People. |
11718
From: shadow, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: Sinéad O'Connor's Death 'Not Being Treated as Suspicious,' Says...
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Very rough road from the beginning for this dear one, don't think she could continue after her son's suicide though she clearly tried her best... May she finally find the peace that eluded her while here... |
11719
From: ryan, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: Sinéad O'Connor's Death 'Not Being Treated as Suspicious,' Says...
URL: https://www.counterpunch.org/2023/07/28/roaming-charges-98/
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+ About 10 years ago, an irate Sinéad O’Connor rang up the CounterPunch office and threatened to sue us over a piece we’d run. Becky sensibly gave her my number. I was walking the dog when my iPhone buzzed. “This is Sinead.” “Sinead who?” I inquired, playing for time. “Who the fuck do you think, asshole!” “Oh, O’Conner,” I muttered. As if there could be any other. It turns out this was the beginning of a fraught but beautiful relationship. I let her unload on us for about 40 minutes and then said, “Why don’t you write that up for us?” “You want me to write for you?” “Absolutely,” I said. “Thank you, thank you! Nobody’s ever responded that way to one of my calls before,” she said. And she did. Over the next few months we got a few pieces from her that were funny and smart and wicked. She’d call up 5 minutes after she emailed it Dublin time and say, “Jeffrey, did you get the damn piece, yet, I haven’t heard from you!” “Uh, Sinead, it’s 4 am here.” “Sorry, I’ll call back.” She was beautiful, brilliant and one of the bravest people I’ve ever encountered. And now she’s gone. Fuck. + I found my notebook from the day of that first call from Sinéad. There’s a funny bit I’d forgotten. After we’d smoothed the waters & she agreed to drop her suit and write for us instead, O’Connor said: “One more thing, Jeffrey [the fierceness returning to her voice] You’ve got to promise never to run another story by that fucking c-word (she could outswear Lemmy from Motörhead) Ruth Fowler!” Fowler had written the offensive piece. I replied, a little tremulously now: “No. I promise not to banish you no matter what outrageous thing you write or what nasty shit they say about you and I won’t ban Ruth, either.” She sighed. “OK, a girl has to try. Bye lover.” Bye lover. How could I have ever forgotten? + After a couple hundred thousand cases of abuse by priests and nuns (including her own), there’s no doubt now that Sinéad O’Connor was right about the Church and the Pontiff who sanctified and covered up its crimes against children. + O’Connor: “I feel that having a No. 1 record derailed my career and my tearing the photo put me back on the right track.” + Question: Did ripping up the photo of John Paul II define your career? Sinéad: “Yes, in a beautiful fucking way. There was no doubt about who this bitch is. There was no more mistaking this woman for a pop star. But it was not derailing. People say, “Oh, you fucked up your career.” But they’re talking about the career they had in mind for me. I fucked up the house in Antiqua the record companies wanted me to buy. I fucked up their career, not mine. It meant I had to make my living playing live, and I am born for live performance.” + When Frank Sinatra said he wanted to slap her for disrespecting the Pope, O’Connor retorted: “It wouldn’t be the first time he’s hit a woman.” + This a capella performance of War by Sinead a few nights after all hell had broken loose from her SNL gig is one of the most courageous acts I’ve ever seen. Mercilessly booed by 24,000 Born Again Bob Dylan fans & only Kris Kristofferson would come to her aid. What a bunch of frauds. + Only Sinéad O’Connor had the guts to go to a Bob Dylan Tribute and sing a Bob Marley song, highlighting how far Dylan had left those sentiments behind, while Marley, like O’Connor herself, only got more radical until his death. + While Bob Dylan snarled out anti-Palestinian hate songs like Neighborhood Bully, Sinéad O’Connor boycotted Israel… + Before shredding the pope on live TV, O’Connor had already infuriated the guardians of American political morality by refusing to perform in venues that opened the evening with the Star-Spangled Banner. Sinead was also one of the first white artists to condemn the racism of the music establishment–from the Grammys to Rolling Stone to MTV–which ignored if not denigrated what would become the defining music of our time: hip hop. After hundreds of thousands of cases of clerical abuse (including her own), O’Connor was proved 100% right about the Catholic Church and the Pontiff who sanctified and covered up its crimes against children. But being right is often cold comfort and doesn’t lessen the pain from the wounds that have been inflicted on you. She was the real thing and paid price for being it. + I should note that this wasn’t the first time Ruth Fowler had gotten us in trouble. She’d written a piece ostensibly on Angela Jolie’s double mastectomy which had provoked the overwrought ire of the ISO (now defunct). I wish Ruth would get us into more trouble. You meet the most interesting people that way. + With O’Connor you can never escape the beauty, texture and depth of expression in her voice, here singing “I Dreamt I Dwelt in Marble Halls,” the song Maria the laundress sings in James Joyce’s story “Clay” from Dubliners. |
11722
From: shadow, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: Sinéad O'Connor's Death 'Not Being Treated as Suspicious,' Says...
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Exactly. What he said, and a lot more. Been taking in her natal chart and departure timing since I posted briefly. Pretty breathtaking even without birthtime being confirmed. Powerfully fueled by Uranus, Pluto and Mars, fulfilling and bringing full-circle so much passionate momentum accumulated from other lifetimes, she came like a comet heralding the return of the Divine Feminine in its fiercest, most relentless refusal to further endure its wisdom and truth being violated, disrespected and disappeared... She's passed her torch to so many others, now, who very eagerly take it up and onward... |
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11720
From: ryan, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: Sinéad O'Connor's Death 'Not Being Treated as Suspicious,' Says...
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July 28, 2023 It is No Measure of Health to be Well Adjusted to a Profoundly Sick Society by Sinead O'Connor There are no media which block mockery of those perceived to be (whether mistakenly diagnosed by media, or otherwise ) mentally ill. They do not care to recognise how dangerous it is to do so. It isn’t for me that I have been willing to keep putting my head above the parapet, and willing to keep getting the fucking shit kicked out of me.. as I do on the issues of mental health or child abuse. It’s because PEOPLE GET BULLIED WHEN MEDIA DON’T EDIT RESPONSIBLY AND PEOPLE DIE BECAUSE OF THAT BULLYING. (See Miley letter 4 on my site for suicide statistics.) When editors do not act responsibly on the issue of mental health their readers kill themselves. That’s the bottom line. Media create everyone’s reality. They create the world as we see it. The music. Who’s a lunatic. Who is sane. Who exactly are media to be allowed define what is sane? Is having the close up HD slow fuckin motion face of Gaddafi being shot off on the front page in massive technicolor on all the bottom shelves of news stores so that every child in the universe can see it, sane? Is that a sane practice? No. Did Britney Spears ever do anything like that? No. She fuckin’ didn’t. Because she is a lady, not a whore for blood. She got made crazy by the media when there was fuck all wrong with her BUT the media. She got Kafka’d. That’s what happens to her fans then. Those that love her won’t be inspired by her to be their beautiful selves. It doesn’t suit media’s idea of the future that young people grow up to make the world a loving place. So media fuck up the young people’s heroes. Then the young people are afraid. And what’s the worst thing to be called? What is it everyone’s so afraid of? Being either considered ” crazy” or actually being “crazy”. And why is that such a terrifying thing to be considered? Because “Crazy” people get treated like shit. Not with love, which is what one’s grandmother would expect of one, in the presence of a person afflicted with a disability of any kind. But as Krishnamurti said, “It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society”. If people like Fowler and the other irresponsibly murderous-tongued media are sane, then I really wanna be crazy thanks. Because you know what? It’s not me going round killing people it’s media. I recommend all readers to my website wherein you will find a link to a British information pack on mental health advocacy and human rights. When the afflicted are mocked they die. When their heroes are mocked by their perceived mental afflictions, they die. Not the heroes, they never die, that’s the sad part. It’s the afflicted. They have to hide. It’s like trying to walk up the street with two broken legs and make sure you walk like normal because if you don’t, people will come and smash up your legs and laugh about it when you scream. And no one will defend you. That is why I consider I myself the defender of the mentally ill. I myself am not in fact mentally ill. I have been the subject of a mis-diagnoses, which came about by a doctor who never met me, who on the phone to a general practitioner who was meeting me for the first time, said “from what I read about her in the papers I’d say she is bipolar”. It suited me to believe it. The fact was I had a baby 5 months previously and his father didn’t want to know him. I was severely distressed by this and had taken myself to the doctor to say I was feeling depressed and not feeling like myself. I have over the last three years, had three ‘second opinions’ in consultation with three hospitals. The last results were in the last 6 weeks. All have confirmed that I never did have bipolar disorder. I was diagnosed by media. Because I’m the type of woman that media wouldn’t want being a hero. Because it doesn’t suit them to have women feel strong. And so they’ll use other women. Who’ll write venom about women. Kafka again. Any woman who might inspire others to be themselves at any cost and to believe that there is a God despite religion, who can be called upon to immediately intervene, when people recognise that religion has them talking to the wall, has to be ‘crazied’. It’s been that way from creation. I’m honoured to be one in an ancient historic line. Of female spiritual soldiers. Soldiers, not ladies, so don’t gimme any of the “If you’re not a fucking saint and perfect you can’t be a spiritual soldier” shit. Google Jesus mashing up the fucking temple. I’m willing to fight on behalf of those who are not able to defend themselves, using all I have learned from being treated as the mentally ill are treated. My relentlessness in seeking human rights laws be APPLIED to the mentally is not going to cease. The mentally ill are amongst the most extremely vulnerable of this earth. When can crazy stop being a term of abuse? This piece was first published on CounterPunch in October 2013. |
11723
From: shadow, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: Sinéad O'Connor's Death 'Not Being Treated as Suspicious,' Says...
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OMG...if I get started on this... The term "mental health" is not only hopelessly archaic in its failure to even begin to grasp the outer peripheries of reality as far as what's actually going on within any human being's thoughts and feelings, it has literally comprised, within two tiny words, rationale and justification for some of the most graphically violent, flagrant and egregious abuses in human history........................ All Love and gratitude to her, to add to all she now dwells within already, for all the horror she endured and, then, chose to enact her hard-won old-soul strength and wherewithal to shout it from our rooftops regardless of anyone's resistance to hearing it... |
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11721
From: ryan, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: Sinéad O'Connor's Death 'Not Being Treated as Suspicious,' Says...
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July 28, 2023 I Will Rise and I Will Return: The Lucidity of Sinéad O’Connor by Lee Hall Image of Sinead O'Conner. Photo (unmodified): Bryan Ledgard; CC by 2.20. You must always be puzzled by mental illness. The thing I would dread most, if I became mentally ill, would be your adopting a common-sense attitude; that you could take it for granted that I was deluded. – Ludwig Wittgenstein, to Maureen O’Connor Drury Sinéad O’Connor has died, aged 56, after a long struggle with mental torments that many took for granted. A well-meaning headline writer for the Los Angeles Times offered the representative sample “Don’t Let the Drama Around Sinéad O’Connor Eclipse Her Art.” The best known “drama around Sinéad” unfolded in October 1992, when the singer protested child abuse in the Catholic church by ripping up an image of John Paul II on Saturday Night Live. As a rising star of striking talent and promise, the young singer faced interminable gaslighting. “People do use the fact that I’ve got an illness to beat me up,” O’Connor once said, “often for perfectly sane things I’ve done.” To have a mental disorder you don’t understand, O’Connor said, means “you end up burning your bridges a bit so you end up a bit isolated.” Dr. Phil managed to exploit that vulnerability to insinuate, in a televised shrink session with O’Connor, that the Pope’s photo represented personal daddy issues. “[T]hey treat me like a dancing bear,” O’Connor told one interviewer. Castigated You know I love to make music, but my head got wrecked by the business. — Sinéad O’Connor “Sinéad’s Perplexing Protest,” the Washington Post called the 1992 SNL segment before rambling on about O’Connor’s “confusing intellectual influences.” O’Connor had inserted the phrase “child abuse” (twice) in Bob Marley’s song “War” before tearing up the Pope’s image. It was arguably the most powerful piece of performance art of the 1990s, and all the more powerful coming from a resident of a Catholic country. Plenty of people in privileged positions had some knowledge of the abuse in the Catholic church. Abuse was enabled by secular laws in the United States as well. Socially vulnerable kids bore the brunt of the torment. There would be harsh consequences for O’Connor’s “perplexing” urge to stand up for them. Joe Pesci castigated O’Connor on SNL’s next episode. The Anti-Defamation League condemned her. One group brought a steamroller to Chrysalis Records in New York City to crush her CDs. This came a year after she won a 1991 Grammy and refused it on account of the materialism and inequality the awards perpetuated. And O’Connor would keep speaking. For Palestinians. For Black Lives Matter. For abortion rights. For dying veterans. She collaborated with Mary J. Blige to confront the commercial exploitation of girls, and challenged North Carolina for restricting gender-expansive and trans people’s restroom use. O’Connor stood for the role of art in amplifying suppressed voices. O’Connor has also talked of the filicidal aspects of war. Bob Guccione Jr. of Spin asked if the 1991 Bush/Cheney Liberation of Kuwait came across not so much as a victory for freedom as “a celebration that we beat the s–t out of somebody.” O’Connor replied: “That’s what we’ve been made into. We’re quite willing for our own sons to be killed for that reason. We think that that’s a good thing. We don’t question. We don’t say: Well, why is my son in Kuwait? We say: My son’s in Kuwait, isn’t it great? That’s abuse of children.” War as child abuse. O’Connor called it—displaying a lucidity few have attained. Stolen Lands ‘Tis like the howling of Irish wolves against the moon.” – Shakespeare, As You Like It, Act 5, Scene 2 O’Connor first released “Famine” in 1994, on the album Universal Mother. By explaining starvation’s role in the violent suppression of Irish culture, “Famine” reclaims what Howard Zinn called people’s history. And by including the howls of wolves, the song harks back to Cromwell’s bounties to the English wolf stalkers in Ireland. (Arming the Irish people was out of the question.) Cromwell also ensured a steady supply of wolfhounds to chase down their canid ancestors. Around the same time, Cromwell’s soldiers extirpated the Irish Catholics east of the River Shannon. Irish people were ordered “to Hell or to Connaught!” as Paul Vallely recounted, describing the ethnic cleansing: “By the end of 1656 four fifths of the Irish land was in Protestant hands. When Catholics fought back, in guerrilla groups numbering some 30,000, Cromwell’s generals forcibly evicted civilians who were thought to be helping the resisters and systematically burned the area’s crops and killed all livestock. Famine followed, exacerbated by bubonic plague.” An Irish person caught eating anything other than a potato could be shot dead. O’Connor sang: “There was no ‘famine’; See, Irish people were only allowed to eat potatoes. All of the other food—meat, fish, vegetables—was shipped out of the country under armed guard to England, while the Irish people starved.” When the English paid the Irish people to stop teaching their children their own language, the transmission of culture stopped—a deprivation that O’Connor calls the very worst of abuses. “See we’re like a child that’s been battered, Has to drive itself out of its head because it’s frightened. Still feels all the painful feelings, But they lose contact with the memory.” A child can’t heal, O’Connor sang, without the ability to recover memories and grieve what was lost. Neither can a people. “Look at all our old men in the pubs, look at all our young people on drugs.” O’Connor regarded the prevalence of child abuse in Ireland as the result of its people having been forced into servitude on their own territory—with the encouragement of a string of Roman Catholic popes and priests who declared it God’s will. As for Ireland’s wolves, their songs are forever silenced. Rise in Power In January 2022, Sinéad O’Connor announced that her 17-year-old child Shane died after slipping away from Tallaght Hospital. “May he rest in peace and may no one follow his example. My baby. I love you so much.” The teen was under the supervision of health care assistants after having made two suicide attempts in the previous week. Ireland’s National Review Panel investigates deaths of children in need of assistance. Since the panel debuted in 2009 more than 150 children and youths have died while in care or known to care services. Nearly a quarter of the deaths have been suicides, mostly between ages 15 and 17. The panel has pointed to overloaded employees as a factor. But O’Connor knew how this crisis took shape. She told us. Eighteen months after Shane’s death, on Wednesday the 26th of July 2023, Sinéad O’Connor left us. “She was beautiful, brilliant,” wrote Jeffrey St. Clair, “and one of the bravest people I’ve ever encountered.” Rise in power, Sinéad. May no one ever again take it for granted that you were deluded. Notes “Famine” was written by John Reynolds, Sinéad O’Connor, Tim Simenon, and David Clayton, and includes a sample of “Eleanor Rigby” by Lennon and McCartney. This memorial is abridged and updated from an earlier piece written during O’Connor’s lifetime. Lee Hall holds an LL.M. in environmental law with a focus on climate change, and has taught law as an adjunct at Rutgers–Newark and at Widener–Delaware Law. Lee is an author, public speaker, and creator of the Studio for the Art of Animal Liberation on Patreon. |
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