Sinead O’Connor is a big yet controversial name in Ireland and the music business in general. Growing up she had a very tough upbringing and childhood and she actually never finished school because she ran away to Dublin to try to make it in the music business. Her big break came when she was signed by Ensign Records who produced her first record The Lion and the Cobra in 1987.
From there she has had an extensive music career full of controversies. And although her controversies have assisted in her making a name for herself, this page will not focus on those controversies. If you’d like to read up on them and the mental strain that is put on modern celebrities click here.
We came across Sinead O’Connor while studying Michael Collins, as she performed many songs for soundtrack for the film about him starring Liam Neeson. As we continued to study her we saw that there have been many times within her career she had adapted traditional Irish music and added her own flair to it.
A classic song that Sinead O’Connor performed in the film is called “She Moved Through The Fair,” but for her purposes she switches the pronouns around so that the “she’s” become “he’s.” In the film “She Moved Through The Fair” is played as Michael Collins is assassinated, the assassination scene is also juxtaposed with Michael’s fiancé Kitty Kiernan, played by Julia Roberts, shopping for their wedding for their wedding.
Shown above is the assassination scene from Michael Collins, featuring Sinead O’Connor singing her version of “She Moves Through The Fair.” And below is the version off of the soundtrack because the audio quality is not the best in the film clip.
Sinead O’Connor’s performance heightens the emotion of this scene because she has such a unique quality to her voice that the song seems to hang rather hauntingly in the background of this scene.
You can read some more information and some general analysis that I did about “She Moved Through The Fair” and its specific use in Michael Collins here.
Another piece of classic Irish music that Sinead O’Connor has performed, alongside famous folk group The Chieftains, is “The Foggy Dew.” “The Foggy Dew” is actually about the 1916 Rising and it details what fighting in the Rising was actually like.
You can read some information about “The Foggy Dew” here.
This version of “The Foggy Dew” is particularly striking, once again, because of Sinead O’Connors unique intonation. Her voice has a melancholy tone to it that fits this song almost perfectly. Its meant to commemorate the Rising and it is effective because it taps into both the sadness of the loss and the glory of dying for Ireland.
Both of these songs are good examples of Irish culture continues to survive across generations. Both songs were at least fifty years older than Sinead O’Connor was when she recorded them and yet even now several years after that they are still widely popular. Something truly amazing about Irish folk music is that it has the ability to touch anybody, whether they are Irish or not. Although she has adapted them to fit her own style, by singing old folk songs like these Sinead O’Connor helps keep them alive and keeps the old parts of Ireland alive.
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Citations:
“Sinead O’Connor.” Biography.com. A&E Networks Television, 19 May 2016. Web. 02 Dec. 2016.