Sinéad and Religion

How it failed her, spectacularly, for her entire life.

I’ve had so much unplaced anger over Sinéad O’ Connor’s death since seeing the horrible—but sadly, not entirely surprising news. Without an ounce of ghoulish rubbernecking—which sometimes is the case, but not this time—I devoured every obit, rant, analysis and post that I clicked on. I wanted someone else to do it for me: to articulate perfectly where fault lay, who was to blame for her difficult life and early demise.

Momentary satisfaction came from Morrissey’s outrage, from my friend Lauren Hough’s perfect and immediate reaction, from Mikal Gilmore’s updated FB post on her documentary. There were countless social media posts from knowns and unknowns who spoke of her bravery, her talent, her voice, her trauma, her vilification, the reckoning of her rightness and righteousness.

I didn’t have much to say yesterday, I was just sad. I’d had a bad feeling since her 17-year-old son took his life a year ago. And I hadn’t followed her music for some time—that’s not saying much—I don’t tend …