She converted to Islam, took her Islamic name and became a familiar sight in her Abaya and Hijab. She said her conversion to Islam was because the Quoran states that “nothing in the Universe should be worshipped except God”, and it confirms all previous scriptures, so it was “the natural conclusion of any intelligent theologian”.

Sinéad wholeheartedly embraced many religious practices, and made them her own. She referred to Mary affectionately as the BVM (Blessed Virgin Mary, for the heathens out there!), sang with the monks at Glenstal Abbey, fell in love with the teachings of Rastafarai, was ordained as a priest and later converted to Islam. She released an album called Theology after studying Christian scriptures in depth through a new lens. She said she wrote it to “rescue God from religion- and I say that as a person with a great love of religion”.

In doing so, she joined the long line of Prophets and Visionaries who were scorned and exiled in life, only to be exalted in death. Prophets are not polite and calm people, they upend tables and expose hypocrisies, and they are branded ridiculous and insane to undermine their potential for revolution. And it works!   Sinéad is a case in point- mocked in life, exalted in death.

In Take Me To Church she declares “I’m the only one I should adore”. Sinéad translated the pent-up trauma, shame and pain of the Irish collective unconscious into songs of rage, lament and searing insight, and became a familar sight on our screens with her roaring, shorn-headed unapologetic beauty. She gave two fingers to every form of attempted authority, and she paid a price. She knew there would be a price to pay anyway, so she chose her own.

I met Sinéad through my work as a nurse. She had just got her chest tattoo so we bonded over the shared pain of tattoo-on-bone (her new Jesus, my new eyebrows) and not our bald heads, as the less imaginative might have presumed   Even then I was fascinated by her take on spirituality, and she confirmed a lot of my feelings on what was happening spiritually in this country and manifesting in the liminal space of those hospital wards at 4am. So I suppose in hindsight it’s not such a surprise that after leaving the Rotunda, I went on to create a whole new inclusive religious body to meet some of those needs that I was experiencing first-hand in the hospital.

Entheos was founded to bridge a gap in the spiritual landscape of Ireland. Through my work as a hospice and obstetric nurse- always birth and death- I found myself having profound existential discussions in my everyday life in the hospital, and I realised that people in Ireland felt painfully polarised.   They longed to place their personal spirituality somewhere, and the options for ceremonies/participatory spirituality were institutional religion OR humanism, and for the many many people who reject institutional religion but believe in “something more”, the humanist-style ceremonies on offer didn’t meet the appetite for inclusion of the God of their understanding, or simply the “something more”.

There were also large numbers of LGBTQ+ people of faith who sought ceremonies & community having been ostracised by their church-of-origin because of their sexuality. Likewise with survivors of institutional abuse who still loved and prayed to Jesus, God and Mary, but had been brutalised by the catholic church in Ireland, and swore never to cross the threshold of a church again. These people were left with very few options for their ceremonies because there were such limitations placed on them by the available “secular” options.

Entheos provides a safe and welcoming space for people who have been ostracised, marginalised and otherwise left behind by traditional faith paths on the grounds of gender, sexual orientation, parental status or any other reason. We especially honour the power of creativity, and we have celebrants who interpret and transmute their own spiritual processes in all kinds of ways that could be considered both reverent and irreverent, depending on the lens of the observer. Our touchstones are Love, Inclusion and Activism, we know that there is no change without action, and action takes courage.

Sinead O’Connor, Shuhada’ Sadaqat was a beacon of such creativity and courage, musically, spiritually and personally. Artists and ceremonialists need freedom to explore the edge of reverence and we will be forever grateful for the phenomenal legacy she leaves us in her words, her theology, her music and her life.

Shuhada’s eulogy was delivered by Shaykh Dr Umar Al-Qadri, and he sums up her spiritual quest beautifully: “Sinead suffered more than her share of hardship and adversity, especially in her formative years, much of it from adults and institutions she revered, and yet she displayed an unflinching and resolute faith in the Divine; her unwavering loyalty to God is a testimony to the deep and abiding love she held for her Creator. The more she sang and spoke about her own pain, as well as about the pervasive sins in society that she witnessed, the more her voice and her words resonated with listeners and touched their hearts. Sinead never stopped her search to know God fully, exemplifying a life marked with a deep communion with God.”

Entheos means “inspired by the divine within”, and this sums up our organisation and our beloved Sinéad beautifully. May we all continue to be driven by what inspires us from within, so that we can live our lives in authenticity, creativity and TRUTH.   Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji’un   Ar dheis Dé go raibh a h-anam uasal   May she rest in Power.