Sinéad O'Connor, the Magdalene Laundries and the true meaning of punk
Rest in power to a punk icon of the highest order
I had a whole other idea for this week’s Hyperfixation, and then I woke up to the incredibly sad news about Sinéad O’Connor’s far-too-early death.
For those unfamiliar with O’Connor’s life and legacy, just know that she was an iconic punk – and I mean that in the truest sense of the word, which, as usual, Urban Dictionary has nailed:
Punk is not about a certain hair colour, style, or music, although music does take a large part in most punks lives.
Punk is about liking what you like, being yourself, saying what you think and FUCK ALL THE REST.
You don't need a two foot high red mohawk to be a punk, although that is wicked cool.
You don't need sleeves, a backpiece, or any tattoos at all to be punk.
You don't need a Misfits, Casualties, Sex Pistols or any band like that jacket to be punk.
You don't need anything to be punk except for awareness, self respect, respect for others and an open mind.PUNK IS NOT DEAD.
Sinéad O’Connor, in this regard, was a punk legend. She took on the Goliath that was the Catholic Church, as a young Irish woman at the height of her fame. She used the platform she had to draw attention to injustice, even when she knew she would be crucified for it and lose her career.
My friends, there is nothing more punk than that.
I think especially for younger people Western today who have kind of grown up with the understanding that the Catholic Church is a hideously corrupt enterprise with far too much power, it’s easy to lose sight of what exactly made O’Connor’s big act of rebellion – tearing up a picture of the Pope live on television – so badass and revolutionary. So, today I thought I’d take a deep dive into the history of the Catholic Church’s abuses (in Ireland, where O’Connor is from. If I wanted to get into all the crimes the Catholic Church has committed globally since its inception, I would simply start a never-ending podcast – the best part? There’s so much evil! Never-ending content!).
First of All… What Happened?
In October of 1992, Sinéad O’Connor appeared on Saturday Night Live as their musical guest performer. She performed a Bob Marley song, “War”, a cappella, turning the song’s message of anti-racism into an anti-child-abuse ballad – a message she intended for the Catholic Church.
In case there was any question on that front, during the song, as she was singing the word “evil”, she held up a picture of Pope John Paul II and ripped it in half. This stunt had been semi-present in rehearsals with one key difference – in rehearsals, she’d held up a picture of a refugee child. No one knew what she was planning for the live run.
Executive Producer Lorne Michaels recalled that “the air went out of the studio.” There was no sound. No booing, no applause. All of that would come later.
In the days that followed, she was protested by Catholics around the world. Including from supposed-provocateurs like Madonna, who criticised her behaviour (please don’t get me started on Madonna. I could do an entire piece about the extensive list of garbage things Madonna has done, but I’ll save it for another day). Madonna went on to say O’Connor, “looked like she had had a run in with a lawn-mower and that she was about as sexy as a Venetian blind.”
O’Connor responded: “Now there’s the woman that America looks up to as being a campaigner for women, slagging off another woman for not being sexy.”
Of the spat, the New York Times noted:
After Madonna had herself gowned, harnessed, strapped down and fully stripped to promote her album Erotica and her book Sex, O'Connor stole the spotlight with one photograph of a fully clothed man. But the other vilification that descended on O'Connor showed she had struck a nerve.
Two weeks later, O’Connor was scheduled to perform as part of a Bob Dylan tribute. However, when she took the stage, the mixture of cheers and jeers were so loud that she could not continue her set and left the stage in tears. However, before she left, rock legend Kris Kristofferson took her aside and whispered to her. “Don’t let the bastards get you down,” he said, to which O’Connor replied, “I’m not down.” A moment captured in the photo below.
Kristofferson went on to write a song called “Sister Sinéad” about “that bald-headed, brave little girl.”
O’Connor’s career never recovered. She never intended it to. “I had no desire for fame,” she wrote in her 2021 memoir, affirming, “I’m a protest singer.” And asked by Salon magazine in 2002 if she regretted the incident, she replied “Hell no!” and told the New York Times “I’m not sorry I did it. It was brilliant.”
Ireland, the Catholic Church and the Magdalene Laundries
So, what exactly was O’Connor’s beef with the church? Well, she was Irish. Ireland, during O’Connor’s childhood, was basically a religious theocracy run by the Catholic Church. The Catholic church had a legal “special position,” supported by the Vatican, that was codified in the Irish constitution until 1972. Up to 2007, 98% of Irish schools were run by the Catholic Church. And, as elsewhere where the Catholic Church took cancerous root – like the Residential Schools of Canada and the United States – sexual assault of children was an endemic, persistent and carefully concealed fact.
The Magdalene Laundries (or Magdalene Asylums) were also “special” facilities for “fallen women” run by the church between the 18th and late 20th centuries. “Fallen women” referred not only to sex workers, but to all kinds of women who didn’t fit into their religiously mandated gender role – unwed mothers (whose babies were mostly taken after birth and adopted out without the mother’s consent), petty criminals, disabled women, mentally ill women, orphans and women who had been sexually abused.
An estimated 30,000 women were confined to these institutions where they were forced to work for the institutions, which turned a profit off of their government-mandated slave labour. And, in keeping with the Catholic Church’s favourite past-time of attempting to bury the bodies along with the truth, the remains of 133 women were uncovered in an unmarked grave at Glasnevin Cemetery, paid for by Sisters of Our Lady of Charity, a Magdalen Laundry in High Park.
“The nightmares will always be there.” – These Magdalene survivors tell their personal stories
Sinéad O’Connor spent time in a Magdalene Laundry when she was caught shoplifting, encouraged by her physically and emotionally abusive mother. She was forcibly confined there for 18 months and forced to work for no wages, repairing and washing priest’s clothing.
“I will never experience such panic and terror and agony over anything like I did at that place,” O’Connor said of her time at the Magdalene Laundry.
It was because of this experience and the rampant and un-prosecuted physical and sexual abuse of children at the hands of the Catholic Church in Ireland and around the world that O’Connor decided to do what she did. A full ten years before the Irish government accepted any responsibility for their role in the forcible consignment and torture of 30,000 women and initiated a plan for restitution. Incidentally, the Catholic Church has never accepted any wrongdoing, with many of the branches responsible refusing calls from both the Irish government and the UN Committee Against Torture to contribute restitution to the remaining victims of these institutions.
This is what Sinéad O’Connor risked (and lost) everything to expose to the world. She was a heroine to me as a young woman and her loss is felt deeply.
May she rest in power.
This Week’s Playlist
Other Hyperfixations of the Week
Reading: Educated by Tara Westover: This memoir from a woman who grew up in a Mormon survivalist household with no education and went on to obtain a BA from Brigham Young, an MPhil from Cambridge and a PhD from Trinity College is incredible and I can’t wait to do a deep dive on it soon. Keep your eyes peeled.
Listening to: Behind the Bastards Podcast: This long-running podcast “dives in past the Cliffs notes of the worst humans in history” – and it’s fucking hilarious. Favourite episodes thus far include: “Saddam Hussein, Erotic Novelist”, “Stalin After Dark”, and “Hitler: YA Fiction Fangirl.”
Watching: Succession season three. This might just be my favourite show of all time. Everyone is AWFUL and it’s brilliantly done. If anyone spoils season four for me, I will cut them out of my life forever.
Recommend: Philomena: If you’d like to learn more about the Magdalene Laundries, this film with Steve Coogan and Judi Dench is a great place to start. You will cry.
Thank you so much for reading and feel free to share with friends if you think they might be interested! Until next week.
Siri
God is something that needs rescuing from religion – Sinéad O’Connor
Sources:
The New York Times: The Night Sinéad O'Connor Took on the Pope on S.N.L.
The New York Times: Sinead O’Connor Remembers Things Differently
The Washington Post: To Sinead O'Connor, the pope's apology for sex abuse in Ireland seems hollow
The Telegraph: Ireland's Magdalene Laundries: I hope my birth mother can now rest in peace
RTE: UN criticises religious orders over refusal to contribute to Magdalene redress fund