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Original subtitles

Downloaded from YTS.MX

[tense music]

Official YIFY movies site: YTS.MX

[tense music]

[audience applauding]

[announcer] All right. I gotta tell you,

I'm real proud to introduce this next artist

whose name's become synonymous

with courage and integrity.

Ladies and gentlemen, Sinéad O'Connor.

[audience boos and cheers]

Thank you.

-[videotape squeals] -[boos and cheers continue]

[mysterious music]

[Sinéad] I didn't mean to be strong.

I wasn't thinking to myself, I must be strong.

I didn't know I was strong.

I did suffer through a lot because everybody felt

it was okay to kick the shit out of me.

I regret that I was so sad because of it.

I regret that I spent so many years

very lonely and isolated, really.

Ran down And the lady said it

Got torn down And the priest just said it

Got burned down, ooh

They give me five years Ooh, five years

It's my turn

Oh, oh, Jerusalem

[roars]

There was no therapy when I was growing up.

So the reason I got into music group was therapy,

which is why it was such a shock for me

to become a pop star, it's not what I wanted.

I just wanted to scream.

Everybody in music has a story in terms of their upbringing

or where they came from or what they went through.

There's something they need to get off their chest,

and perhaps we all need a bit of love and affection

that we didn't get anywhere else

but we get by making music.

Come on over there and sit down.

They're all, they're all looking at you, Sinéad,

out there in television land.

They're saying "Mother of God,

what did she do with her head?

Isn't that a disgrace?

I hope my daughter wouldn't turn out like that."

Isn't that what you're saying? Yes, you are.

Already, you are. How are you then?

-I'm fine, thank you. How are you? -Well done so far.

Now from Glenageary, you were a difficult child,

Sinéad O'Connor, you were difficult growing up.

You went through a lot of schools, did you not?

I think quite a few, at the expense of my father.

How many schools did you go through and why?

Um... I think, I don't know how many, Dad? About five.

Five or six.

[host] How many schools did she go through?

-I'd say no more than five or six. -[Host] Five or six.

That's a bit exaggerated actually.

That's in one year, of course.

And for me

Some scarlet ribbons

Scarlet ribbons

For my hair...

[Sinéad] My very first musical memory

is my father singing to me, "Scarlet Ribbons".

I just remember being blown away.

Like I remember like yesterday I was lying on my pillow

and my dad would sing the song to me

and I was like, "Oh, my God."

The angels came in the window.

...all the streets were dark

When I'm 11, my brother comes home with " Slow Train Coming,"

which completely changes my life

and makes me want to be a musician,

and makes me want to be an artist,

and makes me know what kind of artist I want to be

because of the song "Gotta Serve Somebody."

And I was obsessed with Bob Dylan from then on.

My mother had this fantastic record collection

which she would spread out on the dining room table

every morning like a deck of cards.

Her musical tastes ranged from John Lennon

right through awful kind of HMS Pinafore, Light Opera,

right through to, like, Porgy and Bess.

And also in those days, musicals were huge.

That was all that was ever on telly,

was these just high class musicals, you know.

My mother always had the soundtracks to them.

My father was into cello,

which I used to find just too sad, given our circumstances.

My parents separated when I was quite young,

and my mother was a very violent woman,

not a healthy woman mentally at all.

And she was physically

and verbally and psychologically,

spiritually and emotionally abusive.

[tense music]

My mother was a beast,

and I was able to soothe her with my voice,

I was able to use my voice to make the devil fall asleep.

My father is the type of man that didn't want

anyone talking about what happened,

and that's what was wrong with me.

It wasn't talked about, even in the family.

The cause of my own abuse was the church's effect

on this country, which had produced my mother.

I spent my entire childhood being beaten up

because of the social conditions

under which my mother grew up

and under which her mother grew up

and under which her mother and her mother grew up.

I would compare Ireland to an abused child.

I'd a terrible

Broken heart

I'd a terrible

Broken heart...

[Sinéad] I began studying scriptures

when I was very small,

because I wanted to see what was in this book

that they were using to oppress my people.

Why were my grandparents so miserable

that they couldn't have a kiss

without feeling like they were going to burn in hell?

[Father Brian] The church influenced everything.

If it was a sin, then it was against the law of the state.

So divorce, contraception,

and anything that didn't agree entirely

with a very narrow view of the Catholic church,

it was simply not allowed.

It affected every level of society.

It was a mortal sin, for example,

to go to a dance in some diocese,

that didn't end at midnight.

It was a mortal sin to eat meat on a Friday.

You could go to hell for eating a sausage on a Friday.

Everything was gathered around

the power of the church over its people.

[Sinéad] I had loved the Catholic church,

and I had grown up so religious,

like stupidly religious.

I made my holy communion and I took it seriously.

That was a contract with the holy spirit I made,

and I believed it all, and I was trying to live it.

[tense music]

I went into care when I was 14,

into care home for want of a better description.

I was a bit messed up.

And it wasn't acknowledged

what had happened to me in my mother's house.

I was unmanageable, really, so they didn't want me at home.

The place was called "An Grianan," which means "The Sunrise."

[Jeannette] An Grianan was a residential training centre

run by a religious order, by sisters.

The girls came from mixed backgrounds.

Some had come from other children's homes,

have been in care all their lives.

Others had come from insecure family settings

and they needed somewhere where there was structure

and safety for a few years.

[Sinéad] They got a guitar teacher in

who was the loveliest woman alive,

who I still know and I still talk to now and then.

She's bloody lovely.

If not for her, I wouldn't have made it through that place.

[Jeannette] The first night, I was there

doing music with the girls,

I asked her, would she like to sing a song for us.

And I won't forget it as long as I live,

because we were just stunned.

We needed to encourage her in this wonderful talent.

Ooh, I'm freezing!

[Jeannette] When we decided to get married,

I asked Sinéad then to do the solo.

And she sang "Evergreen," which was my favourite song.

One love

Ageless and ever

Evergreen

[Jeannette] The emotion of the song

almost brought people to tears.

It was stunning. It was absolutely stunning.

[Sinéad] In the congregation was her brother, Paul Byrne,

and then he was forming this band called In Tua Nua.

[Paul] We were searching for a singer.

So when I heard this voice, it stopped me in my tracks.

After chatting with Sinéad on the steps of the church,

I'd arranged to go up and see her at An Grianan.

We gave her a tape and she phoned the next day.

She had the lyrics and the melody done.

So we went back up the next night and she sang it to us,

and it was spectacular.

We had to book a couple of hours on a Wednesday afternoon

because Sinéad got a half day from school on a Wednesday.

Picked her up, did two hours of vocals with her,

and then had her back before the nuns noticed she was missing. [laughs]

[Sinéad] So the first song that I wrote,

which became their first single, was called "Take My Hand."

It was a result of the punishment

the nun meted out to me one day,

the nun, she could be terribly kind,

but she could also be terribly cruel as well.

Where I was, was attached to a Magdalene Laundry.

She sent me to sleep in the hospice part of the laundry

as punishment a couple of times,

to remind me that if I didn't behave myself,

I was going to end up like these women.

When I went up, there was no staff there with the ladies.

There was never any nuns or nurses.

And the poor ancient ladies who were the Magdalene girls

were lying in their beds calling out for nurses all night

that never came, it was awful.

I didn't know what to do, and obviously, I was terrified.

Take my hand

[tense music]

[Jeannette] These women,

we're now talking about the early '80s,

some of them have been there from the 1920s.

These women, who through no fault of their own,

had just been put in by the courts and by men.

Very often the cases were they had been raped

by maybe the local priest, the doctor, the father,

or some pillar of society.

They had to pay the price

and were locked away for their whole lives.

[Sinéad] The whole of Ireland talks about these ladies,

but I met them, I met them at their most vulnerable.

These people convinced my father that they could help me

with whatever behavioural issues I had

as a result of what had happened to me growing up.

But they didn't, they just shut the door in his face

when he dropped me there, they took his money.

The problems were compounded.

We all were walking around thinking we were terrible people

that didn't deserve to live.

My father, I'm sure the world would acknowledge,

deserves a refund.

Young woman With a drink in her hand

She liked to listen To rock and roll

She moves with the music

'Cause it never gets old

[Clodagh] Sinéad and I met when we were

both around 18 years old.

We were very close for a number of years

until life kind of took us in different directions.

She really wanted to be doing her music.

I think she really knew what she wanted to do,

but I don't quite know if she knew

what path it would take her on.

[Sinéad] I put an ad in Hot Press magazine

that I was a singer and I wanted to find a band to join.

And I remember going into these suburban houses,

doing auditions for these various different bands.

Eventually I ended up meeting this dude called Colm Farrelly

who was putting together this band

Ton Ton Macoute, so I became the singer in that band.

I had a job at the Bad Ass Cafe on Crown Alley,

and we used to rehearse right across the road from it.

We did nothing but rehearse live,

which is why I love live performing.

And every rehearsal was like a gig.

Nigel Grainge and Chris Hill came over to Dublin

to see us, Ton Ton Macoute.

[tense music]

About six months later, my mother unfortunately died,

very selfishly.

Months after that, I get a phone call from Chris and Nigel.

He said, "Well, why don't you come to London

and do some demos?"

For five long years

I thought you were my man

But I found out

I'm just a link In your chain

You got me Where you want me

I ain't nothin' But your fool

You treated me mean

Oh, you treated me cruel

[Mike] I worked with Sinéad from her arrival in London

through to the development of and the recording

of her first album, "Lion and the Cobra."

Our job as a sort of group of musicians from the outset

was to help her to find her feet.

She'd already found her voice,

but she wanted to find the sort of musical clothing

that she wanted to wrap around that amazing voice.

[man] What's it called?

Um, we haven't got a name for it yet.

[John] So we went into a rehearsal studio in Putney

and started to routine the songs

and get used to the dynamics and arrangements.

It makes a big difference if you can go in

and rehearse for a long time.

Nigel Grange was the head of Ensign at the time.

He was quite used to putting people into a position

of being able to work for long periods.

So he's a kind of nurturer.

I'm just as guilty as you

I'm just as ashamed as you

[John] The first time I heard Sinéad's voice,

it's just unbelievable.

It was jumping octaves

and going from whisper to scream in half a second.

I mean, it was just amazing,

a young kid from Dublin, you know.

And

I'm just as guilty as you

[sombre music]

[Sinéad] You often hear artists saying

that they're channelling something.

I think actually you're channelling yourself.

Your subconscious is talking to you.

I just had these songs inside me

that had to come out.

[John] They were very, very personal

and they were sort of cathartic, really.

There were kind of songs to help her, to heal her.

[Mike] In some respects, I think the band that we were,

the band of musicians who were around her,

were something of a family for her.

We were safe.

Fachtna O'Ceallaigh had been Boomtown Rats' manager

and had run U2's label.

He came over to London and became Sinéad's manager.

[reggae music]

[Sinéad] I had a great time hanging out with Fachtna,

and Fachtna used to bring me to Portobello Road on Saturdays,

where he had his friend Lepkey, and Leroy.

He used to have the Dread Broadcasting Company

and they had the open mics.

[Sinéad] Bearing in mind I'm Irish

and I've come from the theocracy,

and these guys were coming along

roaring about the Pope is the devil,

and fucking burn the Vatican and all this stuff,

so that was like, "Oh, my God, I'm home."

I couldn't believe it.

I fell in love with Rasta at that point.

[upbeat music]

Love to everyone. You're back in tune to The Rankin' Miss P,

on DBC, the Dread Broadcasting Corporation,

103.8 every Friday.

We're electric, y'all.

[upbeat drum music]

[John] She was really shy

and she was living down in east London with her auntie.

She didn't know anyone, and so we just hung out.

We did a lot of driving around London, you know,

with the stereo on, just having a great time actually,

just being kids, to be honest.

[Mike] Ensign wanted Sinéad to be a musical commodity.

[Sinéad] They wanted me to grow the hair long

and wear short skirts and high heels,

makeup and the whole works,

write songs that wouldn't challenge anything.

But then I come from a country where

there used to be riots in the streets over plays.

That's what art is for.

[Mike] That led to her deciding to shave off all her hair.

[mysterious music]

[Clodagh] At the time, I was her closest female friend.

I think... I went to see some friends,

and when I got back to her flat,

she wouldn't open the door.

She just said, "I can't, I can't.

You got to look through the letter box,

I've done something and you're going to kill me."

I looked through the letterbox and there she was

with a completely shaved head.

[dramatic music]

[John] The label were trying to brand Sinéad

with those really obvious generic female labels.

Obviously she was having absolutely none of it.

You just looked at somebody and went,

"We know now what we're dealing with."

It's a powerful statement for a woman because she says,

"Don't fuck with me."

[Sinéad] Me and John were friends for a year

before, you know, we ever went out with each other.

We were both going out with different people and everything.

And then we just kind of drifted into it,

and then within a month I was pregnant.

The record companies in those days had their own doctors

that they sent you to.

The doctor announces that the record company have spent

a hundred thousand pounds making your record,

you owe it to them not to have this baby.

[Mike] Ensign tried to dissuade her

from carrying on the pregnancy and giving birth to Jake,

and thankfully, she obviously stood her ground,

but they did put pressure on her to terminate the pregnancy.

[Sinéad] That was the final straw for me.

I was sick of the fuckin' record anyway.

I hated the fuckin' record.

[Mike] There was a big fallout.

Fachtna O'Ceallaigh was working very hard

to persuade the label to just give her scope,

to just change tack.

Basically they said, "Have a go."

[Sinéad] In my part, it was a response to them

telling me I owe it to them to not have my baby.

And I was like, "well, it ain't worth it

for a shit fuckin' record."

I just knew that I didn't want any man telling me

who I could be or what I could be or what to sound like.

I came from a patriarchal country

where I'm being told everything I can and can't do

because I'm a girl.

I figured, well, if I didn't take it from the system

and I didn't take it from my daddy,

I ain't taking it from anybody else.

Can I do two?

[humming]

[John] The whole of "The Lion and the Cobra"

was completely scrapped and we started again.

That was a really important turning point in that record.

The second version was fresher, younger, and spontaneous.

Put your hands on me

Put 'em on, put 'em on Put 'em on me

Hands, gimme love

Hands, gimme those

I want your

Gimme, yes

Gimme this

[Sinéad] When we got the first album cover,

I was frozen like a rabbit in the headlights

getting my picture taken.

Put on the album and got me to scream along with the album.

So that's why there's the picture of me

looks like I'm screaming,

which they wouldn't use in America

because it was too aggressive-looking

as far as they were concerned.

[Kate] I didn't realize that they'd have to do

a different one for America.

It was only when it came out and I thought,

"Yeah, of course they couldn't have

a picture of her screaming."

You know, that would scare too many people.

I had to photograph her for the cover

from the shoulders up

because the record company didn't want to see her pregnant.

Once we had got the pictures

that we knew the record company needed,

we just did what we wanted.

It was, you know, a joy to photograph

this little girl with her bald head and her big belly,

amazing looking.

[Peaches] I think her image screamed more than feminism,

beyond feminism at the time.

I think it was just like non-binary,

incredible intersectional feminist attitude.

Her fashion sense was like 35 years ahead of the time.

[Maybury] People found it problematic just because

they read the language of skinhead into the shaved head.

It suggested some kind of aggression,

but actually the beauty of her features,

the quality of her eyes,

it created a fantastic contradiction.

As a filmmaker, gave me a very graphic, powerful image

from the get-go.

[Sinéad] Anytime I worked with John Maybury,

it was amazing 'cos he came with

a whole gang of glorious queens.

The set makers, stylists, the makeup people, you know,

and they like genuinely adored me.

[audience cheering]

I felt so safe and looked after.

I felt like I had like a hundred daddies.

[relaxed music]

You do

Something to me

[Maybury] She recognized in us kind of a sense of

some kind of kindred spirit, but there was no judgement.

There was no critiquing in any kind of personal terms.

And she was free to be who she wanted to be within that

because everyone else was free to be who they wanted to be.

[Sinéad] I had never, until I went to London, seen gay people.

They were so inspiring and still are to me,

especially the ones that were dressing like women.

You couldn't do that in Ireland.

You'd have the shit kicked out of you, you know?

Let me live 'neath your spell

Do do that voodoo

That you do so well

For you do

Something to me

That nobody else

Can do

That nobody else

Can do

[crowd cheering]

Why I like performing and why I like singing loud

and stuff like that is because

I am quietly spoken and quite withdrawn...

and into myself, and in my, sort of, normal life,

so it's quite a release to climb on the stage and scream for an hour.

At the end of my day

Nothing would

Nothing would Please me better

Than I find that you're there When I wake

Just like you Said it would be

Will you be my lover?

Will you be my mama?

I said Will you my my mama?

[Sinéad] There are a lot of songs that I've written

about my mother's death or in response to her death.

And " Troy," I think was the first one.

It's also the first song I've wrote

where I'm telling anybody about anything that's happened.

I'll remember it

Dublin in a rainstorm

And sitting In the long grass in summer

Keeping warm...

One of the very traumatic things

that happened to me growing up,

was that my mother had me living in the garden.

So once when I was eight-and-a-half,

I lived in the garden 24/7 for a week or two.

I'm talking in that song about that experience,

the whole thing of sitting in the long grass in summer

trying to keep warm.

So I'm out in the garden in the fucking dark

and when it's coming to dusk and I still hate dusk

to this day, I don't mind if it's day or night,

but dusk, I don't like.

And I'd be looking up at the only window

at the side of the house where she'd have a light on

and I'd be screaming, begging her to let me in.

And she wouldn't let me in, the light would go off,

the house go dark.

Every other song I'm writing is about somebody else

or from the point of view of somebody else.

"Troy" is the first song I've written about me.

It's not a song, it's a fucking testament.

And you should've Left the light on

You should've Left the light on

Then I wouldn't have tried You'd never have known

And I wouldn't have Pulled you tighter

No, I wouldn't have Pulled you close

I wouldn't have screamed

No, I can't let you go

If the door wasn't closed

No, I wouldn't have Pulled you to me

No, I wouldn't have kissed Your face

You wouldn't have Begged me to hold you

If we hadn't been there In the first place

Oh, but I know you Wanted me to be there

Oh, oh

Every look That you threw told me so

"Troy" is not safe.

I don't need to dig that up again.

It's like trauma therapy.

There would've been no point writing

and/or going around the world screaming "Troy"

into microphones, if there wasn't going to come a day,

one day that I didn't need to do that anymore.

Make no difference What you say

You're still a liar

[crowd cheering]

[John] Sinéad was pregnant all through the making

of "The Lion and the Cobra."

And I think in many ways, actually,

it was quite grounding to have a baby very young.

In some way, I think it probably kept us sane.

There's nothing more deep and real than a baby.

And there's nothing more fake and unimportant

than fame, really.

Dana Dane making her first appearance on Top of the Pops.

Here's another lady making her first appearance.

She's got an excellent new album out at the moment

called "The Lion and the Cobra",

and a single Mandinka at 22 in the charts.

This is Sinéad O'Connor.

[crowd cheering]

[Clodagh] I remember watching

Sinéad on Top of the Pops.

It's just seemed quite surreal to be honest,

because she was just my friend,

but she was this other person in other people's eyes.

I'm dancing the seven veils

Want you to pick up My scarf

See how The black moon fades

Soon I can give you My heart

[vocalizing]

I don't know no shame

I feel no pain

I can't see the flame

But I do know Mandinka

I do know Mandinka

I do

[John] When "Mandinka" was released,

it just jumps out of the radio, it was one of those songs.

Oh, oh, oh

I do, oh, oh, oh

I said I do

I swear I do...

[John Grant] You know, it was almost like she had always been there

once she came on the scene because you really

couldn't imagine your life without her at that point.

I do Mandinka...

[John Grant] I heard "Mandinka" at a club in Boulder, Colorado.

I just remember hearing the voice and it's nothing

other than something that stops you in your tracks.

Soon I can give You my heart...

[John Grant] I hear that voice and I feel comforted.

[crowd cheering]

[John Grant] And that first album, like,

the entire thing was just stunning.

Telling me he'd be home

Sailed the seas For a hundred years

Leaving me all alone

[Bill] "The Lion and the Cobra" was an amazing album

just because there was no filler on it.

So as a critic, you know, that was one of the first things

that drew me to it.

She also has a very singular voice and perspective

and very strong personality-wise.

To me, it was like the whole package.

I remember the day The young man came

He said, "Your Jackie's gone We got lost in the rain"

And I ran to the beach

And laid me down...

[Elaine] The thing about "The Lion and the Cobra" is,

you don't get that as a debut album every day.

Those things come like once in a lifetime.

Like the back of his hand

He'll be back sometime

Laughing at you...

[interviewer] And many times in your performances,

there's an intensity, almost a rage burning inside of you.

Where does that come from?

You're a small, demure, quiet sort of person.

I don't know.

Perhaps there's something twisted about me

that I haven't realized yet.

You've also said that non-traditional Irish musicians

seem to have to leave Ireland to make it.

If you're a woman in particular, and unless

you're very sort of timid and you want to make

nice Irish music, which I respect and everything,

life can be very difficult for you because people

can't actually handle a woman doing anything different.

When I leave Ireland, it's virtually unheard of

for a woman to be making her own living

and independent of men.

The Irish fucking constitution still contains the wording

that a woman's place is in the home.

So I was very lucky, from 1985 I was making my own living.

So many people in this country, women in particular,

had to say no when they wanted to say yes to themselves,

or be open about their anger.

At that time in Ireland, women weren't allowed to be angry.

And I think that might've been hard for some of them

because, you know, they had spent their whole life

saying no to themselves.

[women singing]

[man] Tonight, the Grammy awards are presenting

best rock vocal performance female.

Our first performer is 21 years old,

comes from Ireland and with her very first album,

"The Lion and the Cobra", she has served notice

that this is no ordinary talent.

Ladies and gentlemen, please meet Sinéad O'Connor.

[crowd cheering and clapping]

I'm dancing the seven veils

Want you to pick up My scarf

See how The black moon fades

Soon I can Give you my heart...

[John] I remember talking to her the next day and she said,

"Oh, my God, I went on stage and Stevie Wonder

was sitting in the front row."

And we were Stevie Wonder freaks.

So this was quite a leap, you know.

I don't know no shame

I feel no pain

I can't see the flame

But I do know Man-din-ka

[Sinéad] You know, you're there and you're looking

at all these people that you've watched on the television

and there's people like Quincy Jones and Stevie Wonder

and I was just like... [gasps]

I do know Mandinka...

As I sang Mandinka, I had "Jake's baby girl"

on the back of my pants and I had Public Enemy logo painted

into the side of my head.

They decided they wouldn't go to the Grammy's

quite rightly because they were protesting.

[Chuck D] I protested the Grammy's in 1989

because they refused to recognize

rap music and hip-hop

as a legitimate musical category.

I thought it was like admirable

when she put the Public Enemy logo on her head.

With Sinéad O'Connor, you didn't get the sense

that she was just being pretentious,

that she was fake.

It was like, yeah,

she seriously has issues with this.

This is what's going to drive her artistry,

she's committed to that.

[crowd cheering and clapping]

[Elaine] It was a brilliant performance.

At that point, she was the darling of everyone.

[Sinéad] In one way, I loved it.

Obviously I was a very young woman

and you kind of fantasize about being famous.

In another way, I was frightened by it.

What maybe was difficult for me was the timing

of the success thing, it meant that I suddenly had

this identity and I didn't feel like it was really me.

To be honest, I also had very little self-esteem.

I couldn't understand why anyone liked my records.

Let me tell you how stupid I am. Um...

Okay.

We were sitting here doing this interview

and I had accepted the fact that your head was shaved

and didn't even think about it very much.

Well, that's good, that means we don't have to talk about it.

I know, but I see, everybody else in America

is looking at me saying,

"Why doesn't that idiot ask her why her head is shaved?"

So now I'm doing it.

I just cut my hair because I wanted to cut my hair, you know?

It's like, you know, I wear red knickers one day

because I want to wear red knickers, you know?

And then black another day.

We wouldn't call those knickers though, we'd call it--

-No. -[mellow acoustic guitar]

[John] We got married at the spiritualist centre in Sloane Square

and we'd been going to the spiritualist centre a lot

because obviously, Sinéad lost her mom,

I'd lost my dad and a sister.

And we were kind of trying to make

some kind of spiritual connections if we could.

It was a sort of a therapy for us in a way.

We had an amazing time there, so we got married there.

It was brilliant, it was a great day.

[music playing]

[Margo] In 1989, we filmed Hush-a-Bye Baby in Derry.

And it was in that film Hush-a-Bye Baby

that Sinéad made her acting debut.

She came over with John.

She was fairly newly married, I think.

She brought her little son, Jake,

who was just a toddler at that stage.

Of course, I only have eyes for Lecce Loves.

[both laugh]

[both scream and laugh]

Jesus Christ, Nigella.

We'll be barred and it'll be your fault.

Sloppy tit, going on about what's his face.

[Margo] We were trying to contribute to the debate

that was raging in Ireland at the time about abortion rights

and women's sexuality and how women were being treated.

And I think she had exactly the same feelings

like so many thousands of other women,

especially young women.

[Sinéad] It's about a 15-year-old school girl who gets pregnant

and about the obvious trauma and awfulness

that she goes through because of the fact

that she's pregnant and the fact that teenage pregnancy

is just the worst thing that could possibly happen

and people aren't very supportive about it in general.

And girls are made to feel as if they're sluts

and they're some sort of whore, you know,

for sleeping with somebody and things like that.

And because of things like the church

and the contraceptive laws and all that sort of thing

and the abortion laws.

[Margo] In the 80s and 90s and obviously the decades before that,

women were treated abominably in Ireland.

Women's lives were patrolled and investigated and surveilled

and tampered with every minute of their lives.

It was appalling.

[women chanting]

[Roísín] There was a sense of being in this

little backward place, you know,

where the light wasn't really shining brightly

and you couldn't get contraception,

you couldn't get condoms, so this was a big issue.

You didn't talk about sex and you certainly didn't talk about abortion.

[man] It's quite a similar story to your own, isn't it?

No.

[man] You had a baby when you were very young.

Last time you told me that there were certain attitudes in Ireland.

Yeah, except I had a baby when I was 20

and I was living in London and I had enough money

to get a nanny and I had a boyfriend who was living with me

and I wasn't in school.

And I was in a society that doesn't look down on pregnancy

as much as Ireland does.

So I don't think you can compare that to a 15-year-old girl

who has no money and no boyfriend and no support

from anybody, you know what I mean?

I think I was in very... nice circumstances

compared to those girls.

[rock music playing]

It seems years Since you held the baby...

[Sinéad] When you put your first album out,

you don't really expect anything to happen.

You don't have any expectations in you when you do that.

You're not aware of the whole world

of goodies and baddies

to be discovered.

And I remember I was quite taken aback by the whole thing,

amused at the idea of me sitting and doing press conferences

and things like that because it was just

like completely ludicrous.

You know, at the time that I had my baby

and put my album out I was 20,

which was extremely young.

And now I'm 23 which is still extremely young

and I'm still developing my "personality", in inverted commas.

And I'm still discovering things about myself

and about the world, you know?

So naturally, I'm not going to be the same

as I was when I was 20.

[John] When the album "I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got",

was finished, we took it into Nigel Grange in Ensign

and he said, "This is like reading somebody's diaries.

I'm not putting it out."

Sinéad just said, "Well, that's it,"

you know, end of story.

Didn't compromise it in any way.

Well, I am far more proud of this album

than I was of the last one.

I feel that it's much more truly reflective

of me than the last one was.

And I've had much more involvement in it

than I had in the last one.

[Maybury] The way she grew in confidence

was something else.

She's a powerful, sexual being.

I think she was enjoying playing with the gender roles,

the kind of toughness of the leather jacket

and the toughness of denim or the Dr. Martin boots

or whatever it was that she was bringing at the time.

There's always still this beautiful woman,

beautiful girl inside of that.

So she was playing with gender herself.

She came to understand the nature of what we were doing

with pop videos and also, obviously, at a certain point

with a certain video, we came to understand just how much

the videos could change the perception of the music

and her as a musician.

[John] "The Nothing Compares To You" video,

she came back with all the rushes on a VHS

and we've stuck it into the video machine, I was watching it.

And that's when I thought, "Wow, this is really,

really special."

[Jerry] The video was shot both in studio and it was shot

in the Parc Saint-Cloud, which is this beautiful

18th-century park just outside of Paris.

The extraordinary close-up work that John did

with the lighting camerawoman, Dominique Le Rigoleur,

who we chose particularly because we wanted a female

to create a relationship between Sinéad and the camera.

[gentle music]

[Maybury] In between takes,

Sinéad would click on some really heavy duty dub reggae

and light up a spliff, and be bopping around the studio.

We weren't in a kind of particularly sombre mood.

Looking into my monitor, looking down that lens,

I saw right there, this connection coming down the camera...

It was like, "Oh, okay,

this is really something else.

It's not my direction, it's not the cinematography,

it's entirely her."

[Sinéad] If you don't

identify emotionally with a song, you can't sing it.

I didn't know I was gonna cry singing it.

I didn't cry in the studio,

it was just because of the big eye on me

in the form of a camera.

Every time I sing the song, I think of my mother.

I never stopped crying for my mother for, Jesus,

I couldn't face being in Ireland for 13 years.

I never even called home, I just cut myself off entirely

but it took me, I would say, 25 years to stop crying.

So yeah, I was thinking of her and I suppose my subconscious

was thinking of that little girl that sat in the garden.

I think it's funny that the world fell in love with me

because of crying and a tear.

I went and did a lot of crying

and everybody was like, "Oh, you crazy bitch,"

but actually, hold on.

You fell in love with that tear, that was a mirror.

[audience clapping]

Sit yourself down, well done.

-The hair is growing! -Just a little bit.

Just a little bit, a wee bit.

How are you then?

I'm grand, I'm a bit tired, but I'm fine.

A little bit tired, yeah. So we're told.

Good to see you. Will you be number one on Monday?

I don't know, you know.

[audience cheers]

You're all very kind.

I don't want to count my chickens.

You know what I mean?

Half of me sorta says, oh, well, you know,

it doesn't really make a difference,

but then the other half is sort of going,

-oh, please, God, please. -[audience laughing]

It would be nice, wouldn't it?

We shouldn't even be thinking about this.

Shouldn't even be thinking about it, okay.

When will you know?

Ten to three on Sunday afternoon.

[audience laughing]

But I've got to try not to think about it.

[John] The song went number one,

everywhere in the world pretty much.

Then everything changed overnight.

And the winner is... Sinéad O'Connor.

-Sinéad O'Connor.

[audience cheering]

I don't really know what to say,

except thank you very much.

You know, peace.

[upbeat music]

[man] It's Sinéad O'Connor.

Sinéad, "Nothing Compares To You."

[Claire] The level of when "Nothing Compares To You"

became a hit was extraordinary.

It really was off the scale.

She was the biggest thing.

I mean you think of artists like Billie Eilish now

or Amy Winehouse,

you know that level of intensity that's on you.

And also if you're incredibly iconic in your look

and your style and your passion,

then there's a lot of focus on you.

I didn't realize how huge the single and the album were.

I really didn't.

And I looked in some magazine the other day

and it said that the record had been

something like the fourth biggest record in America,

I nearly dropped dead.

I didn't have the slightest idea.

[Marco] The single went to number one in America.

She was suddenly a major act.

[audience cheering]

[rock music]

Hello!

The tour got bigger and bigger instead of theatres,

we got into arenas and stadiums.

[singing and rock music]

It seems like years Since you held the baby

While I wrecked the bedroom

You said it was Dangerous after Sunday

And I knew you loved me...

[Marco] She seemed to take it all in her stride.

There were some days when she was sort of like,

"Oh, this is a bit much," most of the time she seemed to enjoy it.

There was obviously a feeling of like,

"Oh, well, this is going to be great."

It was going to be good anyway,

but this is going to be really good.

[drums playing]

I am stretched On your grave

And will lie there forever

If your hands were in mine

I'd be sure we'd not sever

My apple tree My brightness

It's time we were together

For I smell of the earth

And am worn By the weather...

[Marco] About halfway through the tour,

we did a place in New Jersey.

It was an open air venue.

For some reason,

they always played the National Anthem before the main act.

Sinéad got to hear about it, and said

"There's no way.

I'm not going on stage if you play the National Anthem."

So there was a bit of an argument between management

and management of the venue,

but in the end, the venue relented, they said,

"Alright, alright. If you don't want it played,

we won't play it."

And I thought, "Oh, this is going to be everywhere tomorrow."

Going down to breakfast, you hear the immortal words.

"Oh, God, have you seen the papers?"

[newsreader] First, the explosion, then the fallout.

Hi, 95.5 PLJ, it's Fast Jimmy,

and you will hear no Sinéad O'Connor on this radio station.

[newsreader] Sinéad O'Connor is being shaved

from the airwaves because of a recent refusal

to perform in concert if the National Anthem was played.

With American soldiers on foreign soil

poised for conflict,

patriotism is running at fever pitch.

We decided Monday morning, that since we played

the National Anthem on our station

to support the troops over in the Middle East,

that she probably wouldn't welcome

being played on our station either.

The wrong time, the wrong place

and the wrong way to throw a tantrum.

Someone should just have said to her,

within her own management,

"Sinéad, shut up."

[caller 1] You don't like America, then get the hell out.

My opinion is she should go back to Ireland

or wherever the hell she is from.

Don't tell my country, you can't play the National Anthem.

I didn't put the marine green on to listen to some bald-headed Irish girl

tell me I can't hear my National Anthem.

She wants the money, the fame and the glorification.

But she's going to have to be sensitive to some issues.

[Irish newsreader] One extreme patriot is Frank Sinatra,

who said he would like to kick her ass.

"At his age, he couldn't lift his leg high enough

to kick her ass", says Sinéad 's father, John O'Connor.

[Claire] As soon as someone highlighted

that it had to be played, she would say,

"Well, you can't censor me. This is my show

and why are you telling me what to do?"

America is the land of free speech, and they're telling her

she's not allowed to have her free speech.

Issue number 3, the bald chick. What's with her head?

Let's start with the chick. What gives, Cue ball?

I'm looking at you. I'm thinking 14 in the side pocket.

[audience laughter]

I can't believe you're talking

about my hair with all the bloody starvation

and the suffering in the world right now.

-[imitates violin sound] -[laughter]

Come on, swing baby, you're platinum. Forget the head.

Put a bag over it and do your business.

[Sinéad] I think that, certainly, the industry

can be extremely patronizing towards women.

You're supposed to have long hair wear push-up bras

and lip gloss, you know, and shut up and sing.

Maybe if I was a man, there wouldn't be such a fuss about it

you know what I mean?

It's just not expected of women, I don't know.

But then nothing about me, particularly, in people's minds,

conforms to what a woman should conform to.

But I don't know if it's so much a conscious problem

that they have because I'm a woman.

I think it's because I'm not a conformist on any level.

You know what I mean?

[Gay] Tell me about this row about the National Anthem,

were you right to get into that?

I don't think it was a situation being wrong or right.

It was a situation of, I acted at the time

in the way that I felt would be most true to myself.

I didn't mean to offend anybody.

I did it because I have a huge problem

with the censorship movement

that's happening in America at the moment.

It has terrible implications.

The idea that artists, you know,

painters, photographers, musicians, poets,

and people like that

are being told what they may and may not say

and what they may or may not write about.

-[Gay] Where is that happening? -In America,

in particular among the Black community it's happening.

So, I have two problems with it.

First of all, that I don't think censorship should happen

at all to anybody.

But secondly, I think that a lot of the time

there's a lot of White artists

who are very offensive as well,

and they don't get censored.

So it leaves me thinking that it's

a slightly racist problem as well.

So, you know, if it happened now,

I might've reacted in a different way,

I didn't realize that people would take such offence to it.

Because I didn't mean offence. You know what I mean?

[Gay] The problem is that a lot of people would say,

well, you didn't not take the money.

You know, if they asked me for the money,

I would gladly have given it to them.

You would, you would. All the money?

-Absolutely. -All the money, Sinéad?

Can't go through life giving back the money.

I don't perform or make records or do anything

in order to make money.

It's not the thing that I hold

most important in my life.

Well, I heard that she doesn't like Ireland

and she doesn't like the USA.

So they're going to be handing out American flags.

So we're going to wave it at her and see what she does.

Controversy surrounds her wherever she is.

[interviewer] Why do you think that is?

Just because of who she is.

I don't think she gets a fair... because of the way she looks,

I don't think people treat her fairly.

[Sinéad] It's a very patriotic country.

And a lot of people have been told

that I have some sort of anti-American feeling,

which is very irresponsible on behalf of the media,

because that does put a person in a situation

where literally their life could be at risk.

You know what I mean?

[atmospheric music]

[John] When the press started to attack her

that was really difficult.

They arrived at the door in London and Jake was with me

and he was only very young

and they started to fire questions,

you know, while Jake was next to me.

And I just, I just was... I was absolutely furious.

[singing]

Margaret Thatcher on TV

Shocked by the deaths That took place in Beijing...

[John] She's always championed justice.

You know, if something wasn't right,

she would step in and try and do something about it.

[singing]

[Gay] Listen, this song that I heard,

"Black Boys on Mopeds"

about the treatment of Black people in England.

Very political, Sinéad.

Well you can't really talk about racism

without being political.

[Gay] Yes. True, true.

England's not The mythical land

Of Madame George and roses

It's the home of police

Who kill Black boys On mopeds

And I love my boy

And that's why I'm leaving

I don't want him To be aware that there's

Any such thing as grieving

Young mother Down at Smithfield

5:00 a.m., looking for food For her kids...

[John] We were living in Stoke Newington

when she wrote that song, you know, it was around us,

you know, that kind of police versus the Black community.

It was ugly at that point,

particularly in that part of London.

The police are picking on children!

[Sinéad] I write songs about things

that I feel strongly about.

It's not consciously to write a political song

or consciously to make a statement about anything.

And I think that that's what every person's duty

to themselves is, is to act on their feelings and to say,

when they think something's wrong.

It doesn't matter whether they're, you know, a singer, or whatever they are.

[Gay] Yes, and take the consequences.

I imagine so.

[violin music]

I'm an Irish artist,

and there's a tradition among Irish artists

of being agitators and activists.

You know, whether they're playwrights or poets.

An artists job is sometimes to create

the difficult conversations that need to be had.

And it's none of my business,

what anyone thinks of me when I do that.

[chanting]

[newsreader] The right to choose an abortion,

the right to information on where to obtain one.

In Dublin's O'Connell street, singer Sinéad O'Connor

speaks out against her country's stringent abortion laws.

Abortion will be legalized in this country very soon.

Let's have another referendum

when only women of childbearing age vote

for the right to choose their own destiny.

What I believe is that you cannot take away

a person's right to choose.

It is not a pro-abortion or an anti-abortion issue.

The issue is the right to choose.

The church deliberately distract us from that,

by making it into an either anti or for,

you know what I mean? But it's not that.

It's the right to choose your own destiny.

And it's none of anybody else's business,

not your mother or your father or anybody else.

Or your priest.

[Elaine] I never felt that Sinéad would cave

to any pressure. Ever.

Then she just seemed to become really controversial about everything.

[newsreader] Two weeks before the Grammys,

O'Connor threw down the gauntlet to her peers

announcing she would not attend the ceremonies

because the music industry was driven by greed

and artists were not speaking out

against the war in the Gulf.

It is the creative community that are driven by greed.

That's why none of them are saying anything

because they're afraid their careers

are going to be in jeopardy.

It's why nobody has said anything about the war.

[Elaine] When Sinéad refused to perform at the Grammys,

I was under a lot of pressure to change her mind.

As if that were even possible.

It wasn't like threatening-threatening,

but I felt that my career could certainly be in jeopardy,

and Sinéad's as well.

These were powerful people in the industry.

[Chuck D] I didn't think that the powers that be were ready for her.

Where she's from,

artists had always stepped forward and said things,

but maybe in different genres,

and not so much as a pop superstar.

And Sinéad O'Connor, well, she was becoming a pop superstar.

Okay, so this is my favourite place in the universe,

which is St. Mark's place.

All the Rastas live there,

and all the Irish people live here, which is why I like it,

because Rastas and Irish people should live together,

since they're both the same.

And this is Siné.

The object of my game coming into the music business was

I really saw it as something like a bit of a chess game.

Could I get from one side of the board to the other

and still be myself and still be true to my reasons

for being in the music business?

And also, I suppose, spiritually true to myself,

do you know what I mean?

The music business can be a bit of a vampiric arena.

[Sinéad] That's Charlie.

The first one's Charlie, and that's Charlton.

-Say hello to Jake. -Hi, Jake.

[Sinéad] Gary.

-Yes? -Say hello to Jake.

-Him Jake. -[Sinéad] That's Gary.

Maybe we'll get to see you, Jake.

[Sinéad] He's really mad.

Hi, Jake, how're you doing?

-[Sinéad] Say hello to Jake. -Jake. How are you?

[Sinéad] You can go around trying to please everyone

as if you're in a popularity contest,

and yeah, that might get you lots and lots of money,

but that's not necessarily going to be keeping the contract

that you made with yourself.

[instrumental music]

That was the last one, wasn't it?

[man] That was the very last one.

Okay, can we go on from a bit before?

-[man] Yes. -[Sinéad] I didn't want to fall into that trap then

of you know, the follow up album to the number one, single.

And so I was kind of buying myself some time really,

creatively speaking.

Because you've had that hit record,

all of a sudden you could go in there

and tell them you want to make a record of farts,

and they'll say, "Yeah, sure. Okay."

[trumpets blasting]

Let's listen back and make sure we love this arrangement.

-Okay? -[John] I think there's a huge pressure from labels

when an artist has a worldwide number one.

And I think with the, "Am I Not Your Girl" album,

this was a great antidote, really to what happened.

And it had the most amazing team of arrangers, musicians,

and of course, legendary Phil Ramone producing.

It was just such a joy that record.

We used to go out walking

Hand in hand

You told me all The big things

You had planned...

[Sinéad] I did love the record, and I loved making it.

It was just astonishing being in a room

with that band every day. It was just like, "Oh, my God."

I was quite intimidated actually.

I was quite scared to open my mouth

because the band were just so ridiculously brilliant

and I couldn't see myself as being anyway good.

Am I not your girl?

Am I not

[Sinéad] There were things going on in my own life.

Things I was discovering that my mother had done

that I didn't know about.

And then I had come across an article about families

who had been trying to lodge complaints

against the church for sexual abuse

and were being silenced.

Basically fucking everything I had been raised to believe was a lie.

You know, that everything about the Catholic church was a lie.

Ave, ave, ave Maria

[Announcer] At the end of the line of bishops, walked the Pope.

And as the crowd noticed him, they broke into cheering and clapping.

[crowd cheers]

[Sinéad] I took two things out of my mother's house.

One was her cookery book,

and the next was a picture of the Pope,

which had been on her bedroom wall.

[Pope John Paul II] Young people of Ireland,

I love you.

[crowd cheers]

[Sinéad] He didn't fucking love me.

And I could fuckin' cry right now saying it.

You know, it was such a lie.

Now we know what a lie that was.

He was so involved in covering up

what happened to everybody.

And I had a right to fight that evil

because I loved the church.

I'm going to go on Saturday Night Live

and I've got fuck all to lose

because no one could do jack shit to me

that hasn't been done already.

[Elaine] I had booked her on Saturday Night Live.

Now this was for her third record,

which was, "Am I Not Your Girl."

It's a great booking, the record was just coming out,

and this would really help it.

Ladies and gentlemen, Sinéad O'Connor.

[crowd applauds]

Until the philosophy

Which holds one Race superior

And another

Inferior

Is finally

And permanently

Discredited...

[Sinéad] The song is also very important.

You know, it's a Rastafari song.

It's a speech that the Emperor Haile Selassie

had made at the United Nations, and then Bob Marley

turned it into a song.

First class and second class Citizens of any nation

Until the colour Of a man's skin

Is of no more significance

Than the colour of his eyes

I've got to say war...

...war

War in the east

War in the west

War up north

War down south

There's war

And rumours of war

Until that day

There is no continent Which will know peace

Children, children

Fight

We find it necessary

We know we will win

We have confidence

In the victory

Of good

Over evil

Fight the real enemy.

[Elaine] Nobody knows what to do.

My blood has run cold.

She blows a candle out, she goes off stage,

she goes into her dressing room and she's so happy.

You know, she had pulled this off.

And I had gone into the dressing room after her,

and I said, "You know, I can't get you out of this."

And she said, "You know what? I don't want you to."

[host] What effect do you think

this is gonna have on your career, Sinéad?

I don't know.

Do you care?

Um, well, it depends on what you mean by...

I don't know. You'd have to say what you meant.

Do you think what you have done

will make you more popular with your fans?

Less popular with your fans?

Or will it just be something that Sinéad O'Connor did

in a rash moment?

Well, I can't really say. I don't know.

Are you prepared to accept the consequences,

which you said don't seem to be negative, right?

Of what you're doing?

What consequences?

Well, look at the alternative.

[narrator] Sinéad O'Connor is no stranger to controversy.

A master of the shock tactics.

But this time some are questioning whether she went too far.

No response yet from the Pope,

but church spokesmen say that he will no doubt

forgive Sinéad O'Connor for her bout of Vatican bashing

on NBC's Saturday Night Live.

The controversy for singer Sinéad O'Connor

as she strikes a sour note with Catholics.

[reporter] NBC has been at pains to stress

it doesn't condone what she did.

[reporter 2] The network says O'Connor's tirade caught them off guard.

NBC logged a thousand complaint calls...

[man] Her actions Saturday night were spontaneous,

certainly unauthorized by NBC,

and NBC was offended by what she did.

[reporter] The Catholic league for religious and civil rights

is pressuring record stores to stop selling recordings

by O'Connor and her record company.

During the lunch hour, they passed out leaflets,

urging customers to join their boycott.

Some didn't need any encouragement.

I thought it was repulsive.

[man] Anyone that sends us in their tapes,

we're going to chop up these tapes.

Actually, we were just going to send them to her.

Someone said, don't send the tapes new.

Break them up, 'cause she'll sell them again.

So we're going to break them up

and put them in a trunk,

and have someone deliver them to her

in Ireland or wherever she may be.

[audience applauds]

I would've grabbed her by her eyebrows.

[audience laughs]

Sinéad O'Connor... [gags], you know and so on.

Or you just don't like that she tore up a picture of the Pope.

Oh, no, Sinéad O'Connor is completely a robot brain.

She has messages... She's like Victorian,

she has messages where she slaps onto art like labels.

But I'll tell you one thing, she was very lucky

it wasn't my show.

'Cause if it was my show, I would've gave her such a smack.

[audience cheers]

Sinéad O'Conner, who's big theme is child abuse...

-All right? -It all comes from child abuse.

In the case of Sinéad O'Conner, child abuse was justified.

[John] I got a little bit worried,

you know when things were going really badly in the press for her.

It was a terrible time for us.

And just created this hatred.

It was unbelievable.

[Claire] I had fan letters with death threats to myself,

death threats to Sinéad,

and one day I took in a sack load of letters

that were directly threatening either to her

or to me, or any of our team.

[Kathleen] I was watching it with some friends as it happened.

And we were all applauding and cheering and were like,

"Feminist performance art, on TV.

When does that ever happen?"

[Roísín] I can't sit here and tell you that I was all like,

"Oh, no, Sinéad O'Connor is an icon. She's ahead of her time."

I don't think I was saying that then.

I think I probably was joining in, "Oh, God, what's she doing now?"

There was this idea that she was a bit of a joke.

Fight the real enemy.

[Phil Hartman] When she does a concert in New York city,

if she has the guts to ever do a concert

in New York City again,

after one of her songs,

I'm going to jump up on stage

and tear up a photo of Uncle Fester.

[audience laughs]

[reporter] Do you enjoy shocking people?

[Sinéad] No, but I enjoy a good debate.

[reporter] Did you realize the consequences at the time?

I don't think it's a good idea to talk about it here, tonight.

[reporter] So you don't want to talk about it at all.

Some other time, I'll talk to you about it.

[reporter] But obviously you don't have any regrets.

No, absolutely not.

[Kris Kristofferson] I'm real proud...

to introduce this next artist

whose name's become synonymous with courage,

and integrity.

Ladies and gentleman, Sinéad O'Connor.

[crowd cheers]

Thank you.

[Sinéad] I'm on stage and the audience start making this

mad noise where half of them are booing

and half of them are cheering.

And it's the fucking weirdest noise

I've ever heard in my life. And it makes me want to puke.

[crowd booing]

[crowd cheering]

[Sinéad] My song that I was supposed to sing

at Madison Square Garden was "I Believe in You."

This song was to be sung in a whisper,

and I knew that I couldn't

because I wouldn't be heard,

I would have been drowned out and I couldn't have that.

"Are you going to stand by me"

was almost what I felt God was saying to me.

"Are you going to fucking stand by me,

or are you going to pussy out here

and walk off stage."

[crowd cheering]

Okay, turn this up.

Until the philosophy

Which holds one Race superior

And another inferior

Is finally

And permanently discredited

And abandoned

Everywhere is war

Until there's no longer

First class or Second class citizens

Of any nation

Until the colour Of a man's skin

Is of no more significance

Than the colour of his eyes

I've got to say war

Until, the basic Human rights

Are equally Guaranteed to all

Without regard to race

I say war

And until

The ignoble And unhappy regime

Which holds all Of us through

Child abuse, yeah

Subhuman bondage

Has been toppled

Utterly destroyed

Everywhere is war

[Kathleen] Everything kind of coalesced into that moment.

Someone who grew up in a household

of abuse and rejection,

then being rejected,

by what probably felt like the whole entire world,

re-traumatizing her in front of the world,

it made me feel demoralized, as a woman.

[John] People that would boo Sinéad O'Connor,

what were they doing at a Bob Dylan concert?

She's taken quite a beating, in the world,

because, the world does not take kindly,

to having its program interrupted.

The smooth flow of entertainment must not be interrupted.

[Sinéad] "My name is Sinéad O'Connor,

and I'm learning to love myself.

I am deserving,

I deserve to be treated with respect,

I deserve not to be treated like dirt,

I deserve to be listened to.

My name is Sinéad O'Connor,

I am a woman, I have something to offer,

I am and have always been carrying a lot of grief,

from my lost childhood,

and for the effects of its horror and violence on my life.

I find it hard to be myself,

to show my feelings.

To get to the joy,

I need to release the pain, which is blocking me.

If I do not do this, I will not survive.

I was angry before, because I was frightened,

but I know that if you could really listen,

you'd see that we do not know what we are doing,

when we mock the expression of human feeling.

When we scoff at the sound of our children's keening,

there's a mirror into which we are not looking.

There's no way I'm going to shut my mouth,

I am a battered child,

and the whole bloody world is gonna know about it,

the same as they are gonna know about every other battered child.

They are not going to be able to shut us up,

just because they don't want to hear about it.

[Peaches] We all have, mental health issues,

you know, on one level,

and it's very important for us to recognize that,

and I think that's something that Sinéad O'Connor

did way before anybody else.

[Sinéad] I was always being crazied by the media,

made out to be crazy.

I don't blame anybody, for thinking I was crazy,

or for hating me for it, or whatever,

'cause they didn't know, I mean, it was a crazy idea,

I mean, this bitch is saying that,

priests are raping children,

I mean, Jesus Christ,

of course it seemed crazy to them.

[Skin] Sinéad was put into isolation.

She, was still making great music,

still making great records,

but we didn't hear them and we didn't see them.

In those days, if the press weren't talking about you,

if you weren't on the radio, if you weren't on TV screens,

you might as well have not existed.

Which is what happened with Sinéad,

she just disappears.

[Sinéad] I have about a ten-year period

I don't remember much,

because it suddenly became a free for all

for everybody around me,

personally and publicly to treat me like shit basically.

They didn't like what they saw on the mirror,

I understand that now,

but when I was younger, I was just hurt.

[Dr. Sinéad Kennedy] The willingness to tell her story,

to share her personal pain, her struggles,

to share them, with Ireland and with the world,

I think has given people, the courage to do the same.

[Enda Kenny] On behalf of this state,

the government and our citizens,

deeply regret, and apologize unreservedly,

to all those women,

for the hurt that was done to them,

for the, any stigma they have suffered,

as a result of the time they spent,

in the Magdalene Laundries.

Today, we live in a very different country,

with a very different consciousness,

and a very different awareness.

[crowd cheering]

An Ireland where we have more compassion,

more empathy, more insight, more heart.

We do, because at last, we are learning those terrible lessons.

We do, because at last we're giving up our secrets.

In Ireland, it's being called a quiet revolution,

and a victory for women.

The once conservative nation, voted yes

to repeal a constitutional ban on abortion.

[crowd cheering]

[women chanting]

[woman] Yeah, I'm proud to be Irish today

I think Ireland's coming so far,

in the last ten years, and I think it's really showing

that we're not so influenced

by the church as much anymore.

[Roisin] Wherever there's that righteous anger

of a woman now, who is making a difference,

who's changing things,

who's standing up and being courageous.

That is where the little sparks of Sinéad are.

[music playing]

We are seeing the rights that people fought for being pulled back,

being diminished,

and... to look at the power of speaking out,

and she is the absolute epitome of what that power is.

We need to keep showing how effective it is,

and how important it is.

[crowd chanting]

Women's bodies are under attack!

What do we do? Stand up, fight back!

[Chuck D] There's a lot of artists that came afterward,

that were able to say and speak their mind,

and spill their soul.

She broke the ice for a whole decade

or two decades of artists after her.

[upbeat music]

[reporter] A government inquiry last year

found some Irish bishops

put their church's reputation

before the interests of their flock,

actively covering up clerical child abuse for 30 years.

But the scandals go far beyond Ireland,

and touch the Vatican directly.

Last week, it was alleged that Pope Benedict,

then known as Cardinal Ratzinger,

had prevented the church trial,

of an American paedophile priest, in the 1990s.

The church in Ireland, must acknowledge before the Lord

and others, the serious sins committed

against defenceless children.

[Kathleen] Sinéad O'Connor as an artist, forged her own path

in a world that just was not ready for her.

This young upstart,

with the most beautiful voice you can imagine,

showed up, and just rocked the shit out of the horse cart.

I don't want to see her as a martyr,

because she's a three-dimensional human being.

She makes mistakes, she's a weirdo, she's great,

she's a lot of different things.

She did not deserve what she got.

[calm music]

[Sinéad] I regret that people treated me like shit,

and I regret that I was so wounded already

that that really, really killed me and hurt me.

You know?

They all thought that I should be made a mockery of

for throwing my career down the drain.

I never set out to be a pop star,

it didn't suit me being a pop star.

So I didn't throw away any fucking career that I wanted.

Didn't change my attitude.

I wasn't sorry, I didn't regret it,

it was the proudest thing I've ever done as an artist.

They broke my heart and they killed me, but I didn't die.

They tried to bury me,

they didn't realize I was a seed.

Thank you for hearing me

Thank you for loving me

Which means forsaking me

Thank you for seeing me

And for not leaving me

Thank you For staying with me

Thanks for not hurting me

You are gentle with me

Thanks for silence with me

Thank you for holding me

And saying I could be

Thank you For saying, "Baby"

Thank you for holding me

Thank you for helping me

Thank you

Thank you for helping me

Thank you For breaking my heart

Thank you For tearing me apart

Now I've a strong

Strong heart

Thank you

For breaking my heart

[vocalizing]