Sinéad O’Connor campaigned for years for the rights of abuse victims in the Catholic Church in Ireland. Before her death she wrote The Magdalene Song, which addressed this, and gave it to the BBC producers of the church drama The Woman In The Wall.
The BBC series “The Woman in the Wall” is about the abuses in the Irish “Magdalen Homes”, which were founded for so-called “fallen women” and were a kind of reformatory. There they had to do forced labor and endure torture.
Now Sinéad O’Connor’s song was allowed to underline the finale of the BBC series. “It’s incredible how the meaning of the song coincided with this story,” her music producer David Holmes told the Guardian. “It was just meant to be. There’s a certain magic when you combine music with a soulful story. Sinéad approved the use of the track before filming even began, and when the producers heard it they were amazed to have something so strong. We all felt it could only be used at the end of the series.”
“The Magdalene Song”: Autobiographical background
In her youth, Sinéad O’Connor herself was housed at a Magdalene boarding school for a while after she was expelled from school and caught shoplifting. She also talked about her own abuse as a child in the Netflix documentary “Nothing Compares”. Holmes recalls: “I think what Sinéad wanted to convey through her lyrics was that even though she had been through a lot, it didn’t stop her from being who she wanted to be. She never really talked about the meaning of her songs.[…] But this one – well, it’s called ‘The Magdalene Song'”
Several years ago, Sinéad O’Connor herself wrote in a published letter about her experiences in the Magdalenenheim: “One morning I woke up and heard my friend screaming. I ran out of my cabin and saw her surrounded by two or three nuns. I can’t remember exactly how many there were. They ripped my friend’s baby from her arms.”
In “The Woman In The Wall”, “The Magdalene Song” accompanies the scene of a mother who loses her child and thereby doubts her own life.
Sinéad O’Connor died on July 26, 2023. Holmes commented on the use of her song after her death: “What I really regret is that Sinéad is not here to watch the series. She would have been proud.”
Before her death, O’Connor had been working on her eleventh album and had already completed other previously unreleased songs. It is not yet known whether these will be published at some point.