The Guardian

Picture Profile; Sinead O'Connor 

This week the Irish singer announced she had been ordained
as a Catholic priest. (The Vatican is unimpressed.) To assist
the unfamiliar reader we offer a thumbnail portrait of a woman
of many contradictions. 

A shaven scalp was the signature of O'Connor's early years,
leading an influential American fashion commentator to call her
'the bald-headed banshee of MTV'. The description was
intended unfavourably, though millions of record -buyers warmed
to the idea. Later, when she grew her hair, analysts suggested
its presence prefigured a softer, less controversy-hungry
O'Connor. 

They were wrong. 

Her talent for protesting against things (war, religion, the
risque American comedian Andrew Dice-Clay) is only marginally
outweighed by her talent for inspiring people to protest against
her. O'Connor's refusal to appear after the American National
Anthem at a show in New Jersey in 1990 lead one critic of the
contemporary scene (Frank Sinatra) to suggest she needed 'a
kick in the ass'. Equally unimpressed New Yorkers arranged for
200 Sinead O'Connor CDs to be run over by a steamroller. 

Yet such counter-insurgencies have not diminished her enthusiasm
for protest. On the contrary: in Saratoga, New York, O'Connor
put on a wig and joined the protesters picketing her
own show. 

A former student at the Dublin College of Music, O'Connor has
won Grammys and Brits as many times as she has refused, on political
grounds, to turn up and collect them. Her gold,
silver and platinum discs almost certainly do not line the walls
of her home in Hampstead, London. Nothing Compares 2 U was one
of the fastest-selling singles in the history of pop and
went to number one in 18 countries. Yet her work has frequently
divided critics and fans. In 1992, readers of Rolling Stone magazine
voted her Best Female Vocalist. 

And also Worst Female Vocalist. 

O'Connor, for whom the political and the personal sit close
in the same tinderbox, has invited us to consider her volatility
in the context of her past. 

She has spoken publicly about a childhood which featured beating
and sexual abuse; teen years which featured shop-lifting and
reform school; and and early adult life which featured a
job as a kiss-o-gram. 

At 32, the Irish singer recently became Mother Bernadette Marie
in a not strictly orthodox service in Lourdes. 

She was ordained by the rebel Bishop Michael Cox and ceremonies
concluded with dancing to the Lee Perry reggae track 'Vampire
Slayer'. 

The Vatican, which has banished Bishop Cox in June for doing
this kind of thing in the past, has refrained from extending
its official blessing, but O'Connor insists, 'I think I'll make
a very good priest.' Certainly hers will be the first Catholic ministry
contactable via a major record company. 

She urges those seeking sacraments from her to write care of
Atlantic Records in New York or eastwest Records in London. 

She has requested that correspondents mark their envelopes with
a cross, to distinguish requests for sacraments from requests
for autographs, T-shirts, etc. 

O'Connor's latest act made particularly delightful headlines
in the light of her most famous one: tearing a photograph of
the Pope in half on US TV. 

By this one unscheduled act of vandalism in 1992, she bred lasting
fury and distress across the Catholic world. 

Since her ordination, however, O'Connor has sought to distance
herself slightly from that unpragmatic episode. Ripping the Pope
was, she says, 'an expression of frustration' and nothing
personal.' Now, Dublin bookies are quoting prices on O'Connor
becoming Pope. You can get odds as decent as 60,000 to one, if
you hurry. 

She maintains she has made more money from music than she will
ever need; this money will now fund her ministry. Her ascension
into the priesthood could be the equivalent of a
Lottery win for members of Ireland's traveller population, to
whom, above all, O'Connor has pledged to minister in her new
role. She has always been an impulsive giver. Someone once
called on her at home, seeking a donation for the Red Cross.
She donated the home - a well-appointed $ 800,000 place in Los
Feliz, California.