During a Saturday Night Live performance in 1992, she tore up a photograph of Pope John Paul II to protest against abuse in the Catholic Church, sparking controversy.

[22] Her parents were John Oliver "Seán" O'Connor, a structural engineer later turned barrister[21] and chairperson of the Divorce Action Group,[23] and Johanna Marie O'Grady (1939–1985), who married in 1960 at the Church of Our Lady of Good Counsel, Drimnagh, Dublin.

[25] In 1979, at age 13, O'Connor went to live with her father, who had recently returned to Ireland after marrying Viola Margaret Suiter (née Cook) in Alexandria, Virginia, United States, in 1976.

[26] At the age of 15, following her acts of shoplifting and truancy, O'Connor was placed for 18 months in the Grianán Training Centre in Drumcondra,[27] which was run by the Order of Our Lady of Charity.

"[35] One of the volunteers at the Grianán centre was the sister of Paul Byrne, the drummer for the band In Tua Nua, who heard O'Connor singing "Evergreen" by Barbra Streisand.

Their sound was inspired by Farrelly's interest in world music, though most observers thought O'Connor's singing and stage presence were the band's strongest features.

She painted the logo of the hip hop group Public Enemy on her head to protest the first-ever Best Rap Performance award being conferred off-screen.

[51] Hank Shocklee, producer for Public Enemy, remixed the album's next single, "The Emperor's New Clothes",[49] for a 12-inch that was coupled with another song from the LP, "I Am Stretched on Your Grave".

[52][53] O'Connor withdrew from a scheduled appearance on the American programme Saturday Night Live when she learnt that it was to be hosted by Andrew Dice Clay, who she said was disrespectful to women.

[59][60] When people steamrolled her albums outside the offices of her record company in New York City, O'Connor attended in a wig and sunglasses and gave a television interview pretending to be from Saratoga.

She refused to attend the ceremony or accept her award, and wrote an open letter to the Recording Academy criticising the industry for promoting materialistic values over artistic merit.

On 3 October 1992, O'Connor appeared on the American television programme Saturday Night Live (SNL) and staged a protest against the Roman Catholic Church.

After performing an a cappella rendition of Bob Marley's 1976 song "War" with new lyrics related to child abuse,[63] she tore up a photograph of Pope John Paul II taken from her mother's bedroom wall eight years earlier,[64] said "fight the real enemy", and threw the pieces to the floor.

[64][67] Two weeks after her SNL appearance, O'Connor was booed at the 30th-anniversary tribute concert for Bob Dylan at Madison Square Garden in New York City before Kris Kristofferson came on stage, put his arm around her and offered words of encouragement.

Host Helena Kennedy described the event: "Sinéad came on and argued that abuse in families was coded in by the church because it refused to accept the accounts of women and children.

[83] Faith and Courage was released in 2000, including the single "No Man's Woman", and featured contributions from Wyclef Jean of the Fugees and Dave Stewart of Eurythmics.

[87] Collaborations, a compilation album of guest appearances, was released in 2005—featuring tracks recorded with Peter Gabriel, Massive Attack, Jah Wobble, Terry Hall, Moby, Bomb the Bass, the Edge, U2, and The The.

[106] On 15 November, O'Connor joined the charity supergroup Band Aid 30 along with other British and Irish pop acts, recording a new version of the track "Do They Know It's Christmas?"

[110][111] O'Connor released a cover of Mahalia Jackson's "Trouble of the World" in October 2020, with proceeds from the single to benefit Black Lives Matter charities.

[136] She was married a fourth time on 9 December 2011, to the Irish therapist Barry Herridge; they wed in Las Vegas and the marriage ended after they had "lived together for 7 days only".

"[146] Between 1992 and 1993, O'Connor had an affair with British singer Peter Gabriel, whom she accompanied on his Secret World Tour[147] in May 1993 and at the 1993 MTV Video Music Awards in September.

In October 1993, Sinéad O'Connor, at the age of 27, said she had attempted suicide by overdosing on sleeping pills as a reaction to Peter Gabriel's refusal to make their relationship permanent.

[150] In her memoir, O'Connor gave some details of Prince's behaviour, which ranged from having his butler serve up soup despite her repeatedly refusing it, to suggesting a pillow fight and then hitting her with a hard object placed in a pillowcase, and stalking her with his car after she had left the mansion.

[172] Shortly after the election of Pope Francis, she said:[173][174] Well, you know, I guess I wish everyone the best, and I don't know anything about the man, so I'm not going to rush to judge him on one thing or another, but I would say he has a scientifically impossible task, because all religions, but certainly the Catholic Church, is really a house built on sand, and it's drowning in a sea of conditional love, and therefore it can't survive, and actually the office of Pope itself is an anti-Christian office, the idea that Christ needs a representative is laughable and blasphemous at the same time, therefore it is a house built on sand, and we need to rescue God from religion, all religions, they've become a smokescreen that distracts people from the fact that there is a holy spirit, and when you study the Gospels you see the Christ character came to tell us that we only need to talk directly to God, we never needed Religion ...Asked whether from her point of view, it is therefore irrelevant who is elected to be pope, O'Connor replied: Genuinely I don't mean disrespect to Catholic people because I believe in Jesus Christ, I believe in the Holy Spirit, all of those, but I also believe in all of them, I don't think it cares if you call it Fred or Daisy, you know?

[189] She later blamed the hospital's refusal to administer hormone replacement therapy after the operation as the main reason for her mental health issues in subsequent years, stating "I was flung into surgical menopause.

[193] In August 2017, O'Connor posted a 12-minute video on her Facebook page in which she stated that she had felt alone since losing custody of her 13-year-old son, Shane, and that for the previous two years she had wanted to kill herself, with only her doctor and psychiatrist "keeping her alive".

It was attended by the president of Ireland, Michael D. Higgins, and O'Connor's family invited the public to pay their respects at the seafront where the funeral cortège passed.

[203] Celebrities including BP Fallon, Janelle Monáe, Patton Oswalt, Jamie Lee Curtis, Tori Amos, Bear McCreary, Massive Attack, Public Enemy, Amanda Palmer, and Toni Collette posted tributes on social media.

[207] On 9 January 2024, it was announced that a tribute concert for O'Connor and Shane MacGowan from the Pogues, who also died in 2023, would take place on 20 March in Carnegie Hall in New York City.

[208][209] On 4 February 2024, Scottish singer and activist Annie Lennox paid tribute to O'Connor by performing "Nothing Compares 2 U" during the In Memoriam segment at the 66th Annual Grammy Awards.