Sinead O’Connor | Broadsheet.ie

Sinéad O’Connor by Thomas Ryan RHA. 1974.

Sinéad O’Connor writes:

Message For My Mother On the 29th Anniversary Of Her Death.
Hey Mother,
I miss you.. though I never had you.. I have had you since you were gone. I can’t have your picture on my walls or shelves.. I can’t look at your beautiful face.. Because it reminds me of what you did. But I miss you. I would have liked to take care of you as an adult.. show you some of the love perhaps that you, because of Ireland in my opinion,were unequipped to show.
I can’t bear what you did to and can’t forgive you on behalf of my siblings. But I can forgive you on my behalf.. Not that I am not decimated by what you did to me personally.. .. on many levels… But my spirit didn’t get got.. (Neither did my siblings’) and that’s lucky. And even as you were sitting on me… I could see your soul through the violence of your countenance and feel desperately sorry for it and would wish upon no one the torment it suffered while upon this earth.
I had mixed feeling when you died… mostly I was blasted apart.. brokenhearted.. Not only by the violence of your death in your car.. and the loss of you.. But the loss of the chance that anything would ever be OK.. fixed.. sorted.. acknowledged. Healed… We would never have the mother we never had…
We would never also get to take you to court.. Which would have been inevitable .. My brother Joseph said it best in I believe, in Magill Magazine.. or similar… that “If my mother had done to an adult what she did to us, she would be behind bars”. Such were the 60s and 70s in Ireland.
But true the overriding loss to me all since you’ve been gone is that I didn’t get to be your daughter as an adult and buy you things with red roses on.. as you loved red roses so much. I see white thimbles in shops. with red roses.. or Cotton hankies such as you loved.. embroidered table cloths.. The Yeast Co in town.. as you loved to bake and were such a master chef.. I have to pretend I don’t see them… But inside my heart throbs despite my ability to make my eyes blind.. I can never buy these things for you… I can never make your life better.Continue reading →

Sinéad O’Connor has written a fourth open letter to Miley Cyrus:

Dear Miley,

Since I do not have any address at which to write to you I do so on my site. Since I have three children at home to take care of, I do not have time to come to meet you.
You’ve said on Matt Lauer’s show (where you again refer to me as “crazy”.. Are you aware that is libellous?) that you don’t understand why I have been upset with you. I find that hard to believe frankly, since you’re clearly not a stupid woman. But lemme spell it out for you again anyway since you don’t appear to have actually read even letter one. Had you done so you would not have gleaned from it what you appear on Matt Lauer’s show to have gleaned.
My problem with you stems from your response to my first letter. Until you exposed me (and Amanda Bynes) to abuse on the grounds of my having sought help to save my life, in response to that first letter.. I had no problem with you whatsoever. I hope that clarifies the confusion you expressed on Matt’s show.
I would very much like you please to apologise to myself and Amanda Bynes for having perpetuated abuse of both of us on the grounds that Amanda has had ‘mental health issues’ and that I experienced suicidal feelings (as a side effect of medications) and was open about seeking help in order to save my life.
This should also involve an apology to all sufferers of mental health difficulties and all those who have had experience of suicidal feelings or who have been affected by suicide.
I’m not sure if you are aware that in your own country 7 out of every 100,000 people between the ages of 15 and 19 commit suicide every year. The third highest cause of death for those in that age range (this is the age range you state your fans are at) or that on average one person in your country dies by suicide every 16.2 minutes.
You’ve acknowledged most of your fans are (in your own words) very young. You should therefore be careful what messages you send those of them who may be feeling suicidal.
In your country suicide is the second highest cause of death amongst 25-34 yr olds.
A lot of these deaths would not take place if it were not the case that stigmatisation and bullying and buffooning of those perceived mistakenly or otherwise to have mental health issues, especially when they seek help, creates silence and causes many not to seek help.
Bullying of those perceived mistakenly or otherwise to be mentally ill causes deaths. Period. As does bullying of those who express that they are feeling suicidal and seek help.
You may have noticed that in your country it is the fashion to lynch young famous ladies in the streets because they have been diagnosed crazy by media and or celebrities. This is an unacceptable breach of human rights. And at some point the media may attempt it upon you. If so they will certainly have to deal with me.
Look Miley, what you did to myself and Amanda encouraged enormous abuse of us both, publicly and privately. And will certainly have made it difficult for young people who admire you and who may be suffering with mental health problems or suicidal ideation to feel they can be open and seek help, since you had us mocked for seeking help.
It is imperative that all suicidal people seek help. Whether they do so on twitter or anywhere else is beside the point. People must save their lives by any means necessary which do not involve hurting anyone. It is extremely dangerous to vilify those who are brave enough to seek help, as I did. Or to support in any way the public lynching of so called ‘mad’ people.
Young people are being buried in their droves, having died by suicides brought about by bullying of the type you perhaps unwittingly subjected myself and Amanda to. The type of media bullying which resulted from what you did causes suicides. And perpetuates the idea that those deemed by the media to be crazy are fit for nothing but to be mocked and insulted, this causes deaths. Period.
As a result of what you did I have had numerous communications from people urging me to commit suicide. Not to mention I have been the subject of literally thousands of abusive articles and or comments left after articles, which state that I and therefore all perceived mentally ill people, should be bullied and be invalidated.
Luckily I am a strong person. And I have four children whose lives would be destroyed if I were to buckle under the abuse you set me up for.. If I were not, and or I did not have four children, these types of communications and these types of articles and remarks could have had their desired effect.
I might add my children have been extremely upset by the nature of media attitudes toward their mother on the grounds their mother is (falsely) believed to be mentally ill.
Certainly there are people out there tonight who will choose to take their lives rather than admit they need help, because when people ask for help, the media and celebrities like yourself mock them. I am sure you cannot have understood this when you did what you did.
People of your own age in particular are vulnerable the world over. It is therefore KEY that you apologise for stigmatising mental illness and in particular for stigmatising those who are brave enough to seek help. It would be much more helpful for you to encourage young people to seek help and not be ashamed or afraid to do so.
That way, if you yourself are ever pushed to the brink of wanting to die because of show business’ effects upon you (as was the case with me) you will be less likely to be the subject of the type of lynchings you’ve seen Britney and Amanda have to deal with, or which school kids the world over are dealing with every day.
Also, I would appreciate you stating publicly that the tweets of mine you posted (wherein I sought a psychiatrist from outside Ireland so as to save my life) were in fact two years old and do not reflect my current medical condition. This is because it is extremely hard to get employment when people think one is in mid-breakdown.
I have many emails which I can send you which will show you the effects of what you did and prove all the points I am making here as to the effects of what you did, both personally and professionally.
If you like, my children can also let you have their own personal statements as to how they feel about what they have seen done to their mother.
No person, myself included, should wake to the types of emails and communications I have had for the last few days urging that I should kill myself, nor to the type of ‘net abuse’ I have had to endure as a result of what you did.
Neither should I now have to have management write to half the show business world to explain my tweets were two years old and that in fact I am very fit for work.
I have four children to support. I can’t do that if people believe me to be unemployable.
I doubt you thought clearly before doing what you did and I’m willing to give you the benefit of doubt on that, as I’d find it hard to believe someone so young could be that calculatedly abusive to anyone, never mind someone who did absolutely nothing to deserve such abuse, or to be set up for such abuse from others. I imagine someone else sent you those things and you most likely tweeted them on without thinking. I hope to God I’m right because I’d be very disturbed to think someone so young could have spent time putting together such abuse when they’re so busy presenting SNL etc.
It would be extremely beneficial for yourself, Amanda and myself and millions of sufferers of mental health issues, that you apologise unconditionally and withdraw your remarks. And make clear that my tweets were two years old.
I have no interest in the ‘feud’ which media want. There is no ‘feud’ as far as I am concerned. What there is however.. Is a lot of very serious harm caused to myself and my children and probably to Amanda, and certainly to silent sufferers of your own age who may look up to you.
It’s really about dignity Miley. All people who have suffered are entitled to dignity and stigmatisation is now a human rights issue.
So.. I’m not ‘feuding’ or fighting with you. But I am asking that you restore dignity to myself and Amanda and all sufferers. In doing so you will restore dignity on this matter to yourself. To leave people you have hurt so badly with no apology is unacceptable.
You may disagree with what I advised you in my first letter.. That is your entitlement. However the letter was written in a spirit of motherly care. To respond to it in a way that has caused so much personal harm and damage to me is beyond my understanding, as is your refusal so far to apologise.
I find it hard to imagine you to be an entirely uncaring girl, so I hope you will prove me wrong by doing all I have asked you here.
Finally I repeat .. When it’s you the media crazy.. I’ll be happy to punch their lights out for you.. Which is what they deserve. They’ve gotten away with abuse of the mentally ill for too long. This IS a human rights issue.
If the type of language used in the last week about myself and Amanda (an innocent party) had been used about those with physical illnesses, or about gay people, or about people of different races, or those with disabilities, there would rightly be outrage. Yet there is no outrage on behalf of sufferers of mental illness or depression.
Please do the right thing. You will actually save lives by doing so. There are people who will NOT die tonight, if you are brave enough to state that there is nothing whatsoever wrong with any person seeking publicly or privately, help, in order to stay alive.
I apologise myself, for anything I may have said which wounded you in my second and third letters. My original letter had no intent to wound you.. And I do not apologise for any of its content. My intent was to protect you.. Because I’ve been that 20 yr old who gets asked to get her tits out. And didn’t know better. And I know where it leads.
My subsequent letters may have upset you and if so I apologise and ask you understand that what you did was so incredibly dangerous and wounding and potentially damaging to my career and my children, it would have been impossible even for the Dali fuckin Lama not to be upset.
Anyway.. Please save lives.. By doing the right thing.