Sunday Times
October 18, 1992, Sunday

Sinead bood for Pope insult


   THEY came to praise the rock legend Bob Dylan and they ended up burying the
Irish singer Sinead O'Connor. A star-studded celebration of Dylan's 30 years of
music was disrupted when O'Connor, in her first public appearance since tearing
up a photograph of the Pope on television, was booed off stage.

    The spontaneous protest at Madison Square Garden in New York evoked memories
of the popular backlash that followed John Lennon's comment that the Beatles
''were bigger than Jesus''.

    The humiliation was delivered in front of 20,000 fans and a host of other
rock stars, including Eric Clapton, Neil Young, Tom Petty and Stevie Wonder.

   O'Connor stood motionless onstage as the crowd shouted her down late on
Friday night; twice she stopped her band from starting the Dylan song, I Believe
in You. Sobbing with shock, she was helped offstage by the singer Kris
Kristofferson. However, she returned at the end of the show with all the other
performers for a group rendition of Knockin' on Heaven's Door.