On June 5th, 1993, Sinéad O’Connor failed to appear at the Peace Together concert at the Point Theatre – now 3Arena – in Dublin. She had been due to join New Order, Hothouse Flowers, Something Happens and The Stunning to help promote peace in Northern Ireland. In response to criticism that followed, she made a plea for understanding in this poem that she published in The Irish Times on June 10th, 1993, in the form of a full-page advertisement.
My name is Sinéad O’Connor.
I am learning to love myself.
I am deserving.
I deserve to be treated with respect.
I deserve not to be treated like dirt.
I deserve to be listened to.
I am a member of the human race.
I deserve not to be hurt.
My name is Sinéad O’Connor.
I am a woman.
I have something to offer.
I am and have always been carrying a lot of grief for my lost childhood.
And for the effects of its horror and violence on my life.
I am grieving the loss of my mother and father.
I am grieving the loss of my brothers and sister.
The division of my family.
The loss of my SELF.
My own inner child
Who is really me.
(Remember you do not know me).
Who was tortured and abandoned and spat at and abused.
Who has been beaten naked until she was bruised.
Who has grown up with no sense of self-esteem.
No sense of trust.
No ability to be intimate
and who therefore is in very great pain
which needs to be looked at and worked through and expressed.
So that I can be free of its effects on my life.
Which are many and varied.
I have been experiencing the need to be held.
Which I have realized
Is the governor of all my behaviours.
Both productive and destructive.
This is why I didn't show up on Saturday . . .
I find it hard to be myself.
To show my feelings.
To get to the joy I need to release the pain which is blocking me.
If I don’t do this I will not survive.
If I don’t do this I’ll never be the singer I am capable of being
if only I can love myself.
If only I can fight off the voices of my parents
and gather a sense of self-esteem.
Then I’ll be able to REALLY sing.
Which is what I want more than anything else in the world.
Recovery has always been my only goal.
I have used my voice
in every way.
It is my life.
The only thing I put even before my son.
I’ve run away from the pain of not having been held
For all my life.
Until now.
And when the feelings of loss came up this time
I decided not to run away but to go with them.
Feel them and release them
So as to be free of them.
I had to be myself.
I couldn’t deal with being “Sinéad O’Connor” for the day.
I have become very self-conscious and frightened
as a result of being “famous”
One doesn’t see one’s self reflected in the mirror.
I lost my Self.
I cannot sing
until I’m ready to be myself.
And here’s how you could help.
Stop hurting me please.
Saying mean things about me.
I’ve been in public since I was only twenty.
Still a very sad baby.
But I could sing then because I wasn’t frightened.
I know I’ve been angry
but I’m full of love really
do you think you could stop hurting me?
It is suffocating me.
Please?
It’s an accident that I got “famous”. But I think it proves that there
are a lot of people out there like me.
It is their pain, which they hear and see also in me — being expressed
which made them respond to that song or to my songs or my voice.
I represent a group of people.
Adult-Children we are called.
Those of us who have lost our childhoods.
We make up 96% of the human race believe it or not.
We are in very great pain.
Which if it is to be healed must be expressed
Or we will continue to turn our grief inwards as we do
until it becomes anger and we self-destruct.
The ways in which we do that are also many and varied!
What goes on in the sitting room goes on in the public arena.
War in Tibet, war in Africa, war in Ireland, war in Bosnia.
Do you know that the Serbian leader’s
parents killed themselves when he was only a nipper.
And he is “acting out” the rage and grief he has never dealt with.
I swear to you that this is true.
What have the other leaders been through?
I’ve been trying to give this information.
Because I know it can help the whole human situation.
I was angry before because I was frightened.
I know if you could really listen
you’d see that we do not know what we are doing.
When we mock the expression of human feeling.
When we scoff at the sound of our children’s keening.
There is a mirror into which we are not looking.
Love, Sinéad O’Connor
I am learning to love myself.
I am deserving.
I deserve to be treated with respect.
I deserve not to be treated like dirt.
I deserve to be listened to.
I am a member of the human race.
I deserve not to be hurt.
My name is Sinéad O’Connor.
I am a woman.
I have something to offer.
I am and have always been carrying a lot of grief for my lost childhood.
And for the effects of its horror and violence on my life.
I am grieving the loss of my mother and father.
I am grieving the loss of my brothers and sister.
The division of my family.
The loss of my SELF.
My own inner child
Who is really me.
(Remember you do not know me).
Who was tortured and abandoned and spat at and abused.
Who has been beaten naked until she was bruised.
Who has grown up with no sense of self-esteem.
No sense of trust.
No ability to be intimate
and who therefore is in very great pain
which needs to be looked at and worked through and expressed.
So that I can be free of its effects on my life.
Which are many and varied.
I have been experiencing the need to be held.
Which I have realized
Is the governor of all my behaviours.
Both productive and destructive.
This is why I didn't show up on Saturday . . .
I find it hard to be myself.
To show my feelings.
To get to the joy I need to release the pain which is blocking me.
If I don’t do this I will not survive.
If I don’t do this I’ll never be the singer I am capable of being
if only I can love myself.
If only I can fight off the voices of my parents
and gather a sense of self-esteem.
Then I’ll be able to REALLY sing.
Which is what I want more than anything else in the world.
Recovery has always been my only goal.
I have used my voice
in every way.
It is my life.
The only thing I put even before my son.
I’ve run away from the pain of not having been held
For all my life.
Until now.
And when the feelings of loss came up this time
I decided not to run away but to go with them.
Feel them and release them
So as to be free of them.
I had to be myself.
I couldn’t deal with being “Sinéad O’Connor” for the day.
I have become very self-conscious and frightened
as a result of being “famous”
One doesn’t see one’s self reflected in the mirror.
I lost my Self.
I cannot sing
until I’m ready to be myself.
And here’s how you could help.
Stop hurting me please.
Saying mean things about me.
I’ve been in public since I was only twenty.
Still a very sad baby.
But I could sing then because I wasn’t frightened.
I know I’ve been angry
but I’m full of love really
do you think you could stop hurting me?
It is suffocating me.
Please?
It’s an accident that I got “famous”. But I think it proves that there
are a lot of people out there like me.
It is their pain, which they hear and see also in me — being expressed
which made them respond to that song or to my songs or my voice.
I represent a group of people.
Adult-Children we are called.
Those of us who have lost our childhoods.
We make up 96% of the human race believe it or not.
We are in very great pain.
Which if it is to be healed must be expressed
Or we will continue to turn our grief inwards as we do
until it becomes anger and we self-destruct.
The ways in which we do that are also many and varied!
What goes on in the sitting room goes on in the public arena.
War in Tibet, war in Africa, war in Ireland, war in Bosnia.
Do you know that the Serbian leader’s
parents killed themselves when he was only a nipper.
And he is “acting out” the rage and grief he has never dealt with.
I swear to you that this is true.
What have the other leaders been through?
I’ve been trying to give this information.
Because I know it can help the whole human situation.
I was angry before because I was frightened.
I know if you could really listen
you’d see that we do not know what we are doing.
When we mock the expression of human feeling.
When we scoff at the sound of our children’s keening.
There is a mirror into which we are not looking.
Love, Sinéad O’Connor
