{"id":27615,"date":"2023-07-29T12:23:20","date_gmt":"2023-07-29T19:23:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=27615"},"modified":"2023-07-29T12:23:21","modified_gmt":"2023-07-29T19:23:21","slug":"sinead-oconnors-life-and-legacy-of-protest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2023\/07\/29\/sinead-oconnors-life-and-legacy-of-protest\/","title":{"rendered":"Sinead O\u2019Connor\u2019s Life and Legacy of Protest"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"A<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A person lighting a candle on July 27, 2023, in tribute to Sinead O\u2019Connor at the Irish Rock ‘n’ Roll Museum in the Temple Bar area of Dublin, after her death at the age of 56.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0(Photo: Damien Eagers\/PA Images via Getty Images)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once an abused child, she stood up against the oppression of others, from children abused by Catholic priests to Palestinians living under Israeli occupation.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

JUAN COLE<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jul 28, 2023 Informed Comment<\/a> (CommonDreams.org)<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tragically, Sinead O\u2019Connor is dead at 56. Many of the obituaries of Irish protest singer have been oddly thin, and have ignored key moments in her life. One was her contretemps with Israeli extremist Itamar Ben-Gvir, now the country\u2019s Minister of National Security. She later became fiercely critical of the Israeli treatment of Palestinians. Another was her conversion to Islam in 2018.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

O\u2019Connor maintained to Dr. Phil<\/a> that she was an abused child, the victim of her mother, Johanna O\u2019Grady: \u201cShe ran a torture chamber. My earliest memory, she\u2019s telling me I shouldn\u2019t have been born. She didn\u2019t want me\u2026 She was a person who took delight, would smile in hurting you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She ran away from home when she was 13. She was later caught shoplifting and had to spend eight months in a home for fallen women, which she remembered as a horrific experience. When she was 18 her mother died in a car accident, leaving Sinead forever unable to work through that difficult relationship, which haunted her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dylan inspired her to take up music. She came to prominence with her 1987 punk-rock hit in the UK, \u201cMandinka.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

She was becoming a pop star, but it wasn\u2019t what she wanted. She said she was a punk, a protest singer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her breakout song was a cover of Prince\u2019s \u201cNothing Compares to U\u201d in 1990, a song about the depth of loss, in which she genuinely wept at the end of the video.\u00a0Tom Eames explains<\/a>\u00a0that it stayed at the top of the US charts for four weeks in 1990.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n