REMEMBERINGS by Sinéad O’Connor is a revelatory memoir of her fraught childhood, musical triumphs, struggles with illness, and of the enduring power of song. Sinead O’Connor hasn’t released any albums in the past few years, but she has been getting some writing done.

Blessed with a singular voice and a fiery temperament, Sinéad O’Connor rose to massive fame in the late 1980s and 1990s with a string of gold records. By the time she was twenty, she was world famous—living a rock star life out loud. From her trademark shaved head to her 1992 appearance on Saturday Night Live when she tore up Pope John Paul II’s photograph, Sinéad has fascinated and outraged millions.

In REMEMBERINGS, O’Connor recounts her painful tale of growing up in Dublin in a dysfunctional, abusive household. Inspired by a brother’s Bob Dylan records, she escaped into music. She relates her early forays with local Irish bands; we see Sinéad completing her first album while eight months pregnant, hanging with Rastas in the East Village, and soaring to unimaginable popularity with her cover of Prince’s “Nothing Compares 2U.”

The book is a revelatory account of O’Connor’s life, from her childhood in Dublin through such triumphs as her cover of Prince’s “Nothing Compares 2 U,” and through her many controversies and her struggles with mental illness. “This is my story, as I remember it. I had great fun writing it over the past few years,” says O’Connor. 

Her most recent full-length recording, “I’m Not Bossy, I’m the Boss,” came out in 2014, but she is working on new material and has said she hopes to have an album out in 2022. In the fall of 2020, she released a cover of the late Mahalia Jackson’s “Trouble of the World.”

Intimate, replete with candid anecdotes and told in a singular form true to her unconventional career, Sinéad’s memoir is a remarkable chronicle of an enduring and influential artist. 

Available in Canada from Raincoast Books. Limited signed copies also available.

About the Author

Bryen Dunn is a freelance journalist based in Toronto with a focus on tourism, lifestyle, entertainment and community issues. He has written several travel articles and has an extensive portfolio of celebrity interviews with musicians, actors and other public personalities. He’s willing to take on any assignments of interest, attend parties with free booze, listen to rants, and travel the world in search of the great unknown. He’s eager to discover the new, remember the past, and look into the future.