Sinéad O’Connor

Sinéad O’Connor was raised by a kleptomaniac, said Nick Duerden in The Independent (U.K.). Her mother “used to go to houses that were for sale just so she could rob s--- out of them,” says the Irish singer. “It was funny, in a way, without being funny at all. You know, she’d go to hospitals and nick the crucifixes off the wall. She couldn’t help herself, God rest her soul. It was an illness.” O’Connor’s mother violently abused her, and the only way she could stop the beatings was to go out thieving. “I’d steal to pacify her.” Despite being fast on her feet—“I was a great sprinter: 100 meters in 11.3 seconds”—O’Connor was caught shoplifting at age 15 and sent to a correctional facility run by the Catholic Church. She was forced to work in the building’s basement, washing priests’ clothes in sinks of cold water. One sympathetic nun took pity on her. “Oh, she was very cool. She knew I loved music, and encouraged me in it.” The nun bought O’Connor her first guitar, and she was soon busking on Dublin’s streets and playing in local bands. “I suppose music saved me,” she says. “I didn’t have any other abilities, and there was no support for girls like me. It was either jail or music. I got lucky.”

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