Sinead O’Connor

Singer Sinead O’Connor made headlines when she died unexpectedly on 23 July 2023 at the age of 56. She hit the world stage with her second studio album, I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got, released in 1990. The big hit on that album was Nothing Compares 2 U, a Prince composition.

She was born on 8 December 1966 at 07:37 in Dublin, Ireland. Here is her chart.

(1) She was a double Sagittarius, with the Sun and Ascendant both in Sagittarius. The Sun reflects who they are deep down inside, their true nature, and who they aspire to be. The Ascendant is who people think they are or how they come across. When a person has both the Sun and Ascendant in the same sign, they are expressing their true self to the world.

Sagittarians tend to speak their mind or just speak. Like an Aries going through a door head first and worrying about the consequences later, a Sagittarius speaks their mind and worries about the consequences later. Sagittarians are noted for blurting out what they feel to the world. For those who followed her career, she sure did not hold back. We’ll look at other factors and the Pope picture episode later.

(2) She had the planet Mercury, the voice, conjunct Neptune, music. This represents someone who is musical and why she had such a talented voice. With Neptune and Mercury in Scorpio, she can take a deep dive into feelings and emotions and leave them on the table.

However, Mercury rules the mind and cloudy Neptune conjuncts it coupled with a sextile from Uranus and a trine from Saturn. Saturn is about stability and order, but Uranus is about rebellion and chaos. Her Mercury is in the twelfth house of undoing.

(3) She had Mars on Midheaven, suggesting she could be confrontational. Mars is on the fourth house cusp, representing her inner feelings. Mars is a planet of violence, and she expressed that she faced physical abuse at the hands of her parents.

(4) She had Gemini on the descendant. Multibody signs (Gemini, Sagittarius, Pisces, Virgo), nowadays, could signify multiple relationships. O’Connor was married four times.

Adding to that, she had Uranus, representing rebellion and suddenness, making an aspect to Mercury. This aspect gives her a rebellious streak, combined with Mars on the Midheaven, that led her to rip the Pope’s picture on her 3 October 1992 on Saturday Night Live. This action had a profound effect on her career. This event resulted in her being booed at concerts, banned for life from NBC and faced backlash from the public.

Here are the transits of the day:

Venus rules her tenth house of career, and the transiting north node was conjuncting it in the first house would define her career. The nodes have an 18-year cycle. The last time the nodes were conjuncting her Venus, her parents split up. While as a child, she didn’t have a career, but to a child, it does represent how they are viewed. Unfortunately, there was a lot of backlash.

The previous new moon of October 1992 was conjunct her Mars which rules her fourth house, which rules the depths of her soul and her twelfth house of the subconscious. It also conjuncts the Midheaven, suggesting her career will enter a new phase.

O’Connor’s reason for ripping up the Pope’s picture was that she was upset about the child sexual abuse of the Catholic Church in Ireland. The rest of the world didn’t know what was happening, but in the USA, events were starting to come to light (1) but not widespread as they would be in the following decades.

Despite the backlash, many people continued to follow her career because she was a talented artist, and losing one of her calibre was a shame.

1. Flintoff, Corey. www.npr.org. www.npr.org. [Online] 04 26, 2010. https://www.npr.org/2010/04/26/126160853/timeline-priest-abuse-claims-date-back-decades.