Shuhada' Sadaqat

Sinéad O'Connor, 2014.

Shuhada' Sadaqat (previously Magda Davitt; born Sinéad Marie Bernadette O'Connor; 8 December 1966 – July 2023), known professionally as Sinéad O'Connor, was an Irish singer and musician. Her debut studio album, The Lion and the Cobra, was released in 1987 and charted internationally. Her second studio album, I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got (1990), received glowing reviews upon release and became her biggest success, selling over seven million copies worldwide. Its lead single, "Nothing Compares 2 U", was named the number one world single in 1990 by the Billboard Music Awards.

She released 10 studio albums: 1992's Am I Not Your Girl? and 1994's Universal Mother both went gold in the UK, 2000's Faith and Courage received gold status in Australia, and 2005's Throw Down Your Arms went gold in Ireland. Her work included songs for films, collaborations with many other artists, and appearances at charity fundraising concerts. Her 2021 memoir Rememberings was a bestseller.

Throughout her music career she was honest about her spiritual journey, activism, socio-political views, as well as her trauma and mental health struggles.

In 1999, she was ordained as a priest by the Latin Tridentine Church, a sect that is not recognised by the mainstream Catholic Church. She consistently spoke out on issues related to child abuse, human rights, anti-racism, organised religion, and women's rights.

In a 2000 interview in Curve, O'Connor said that she was a lesbian. She later retracted the statement, and in 2005 told Entertainment Weekly:

"I'm three-quarters heterosexual, a quarter gay".

In 2013, O'Connor published an open letter on her own website to American singer and actress Miley Cyrus in which she warned Cyrus of the treatment of women in the music industry and alleged that sexuality is a factor in this, which was in response to Cyrus's music video for her song "Wrecking Ball".

In 2017, she changed her legal name to Magda Davitt, saying in an interview that she wished to be:

"free of the patriarchal slave names. Free of the parental curses."

On her conversion to Islam in October 2018, she adopted the name Shuhada, and before mid-2019 also changed her surname from Davitt to Sadaqat. She continued to record and perform under her birth name.

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