Musician Sinéad O’Connor has gotten married for the third time, to Steve Cooney.

Australian guitarist Cooney has been a member of her band for the last four years.

We who run this site are very happy to announce the marriage of Steve Cooney and Sinead O’Connor has taken place this morning.

Thanks be to the Great Lord Jah. Rastafarai. Dread I. Conquering lion I. One love

With the surprise wedding being announced through O’Connor’s website – along with a picture showing the couple in a a small chapel with old tattered armchairs in the background, we figured it was an appropriate chance to examine some of the off-the-wall stuff O’Connor has gotten up to.

That time she ripped up a picture of the Pope on live TV

Let’s start with an obvious one. In October 1992, O’Connor was invited on NBC’s flagship Saturday Night Live programme as a musical guest, where she sang an a cappella version of Bob Marley’s famous anti-racism anthem ‘War’.

Having replaced some earlier words referring to African famine with the phrase “child abuse,” O’Connor led the song to a haunting climax, with the final line: ”Good… over…” – at which point O’Connor produces a picture of then-Pope John Paul II – “evil.”

Staring straight at the camera, she then ripped up a photo of the Pope, urges the viewers to “fight the real enemy”, and throws the scattered pieces of the picture to the ground.

Many people, unsurprisingly, were upset. NBC – being unaware of her plan – substituted the performance with one from a rehearsal, though the original eventually found its way onto YouTube.

That time she refused to perform if someone played the National Anthem

The SNL incident wasn’t the first time she had upset America. In 1990 she had been due to perform at an arts centre in New Jersey – where, unbeknownst to O’Connor, the protocol was to play the US national anthem before every show.

O’Connor said she had a policy of not having the anthem of any country played before her concerts, explaining that such anthems usually related to wars and were, effectively, nationalist tirades (though she meant “no disrespect”).

The venue agreed to her demand not to play the anthem before her show, but banned her for life after the gig.

That time she just showed up at Channel 4 to go on a TV show

Having already stated her anti-clerical abuse credentials with her SNL appearance, O’Connor was watching a TV discussion on the topic and was so interested in it, that she called up and asked if she could appear.

Former Taoiseach Garret FitzGerald was appearing on the programme – Channel 4′s legendary After Dark, which would start at midnight and end… whenever – alongside a Dominican monk and a Church rep when the studio were told the singer was on her way.

“Sinéad came on and argued that abuse in families was coded in by the church because it refused to accept the accounts of women and children,” recalled a baffled host, Helena Kennedy.

That time she said she was a lesbian – and then took it back

I’m a dyke … although I haven’t been very open about that and throughout most of my life I’ve gone out with blokes because I haven’t necessarily been terribly comfortable about being a big lesbian mule. But I actually am a dyke.

2000, in an interview with Curve.

I believe it was overcompensating of me to declare myself a lesbian. It was not a publicity stunt. I was trying to make someone else feel better. And have subsequently caused pain for myself. I am not in a box of any description.

2000, in an interview with The Independent

I’m three-quarters heterosexual, a quarter gay. I lean a bit more towards the hairy blokes.

2005, in an interview with Entertainment Weekly.

O’Connor has been married three times and has four children. It may seem bizarre to have to confirm it, but all three of her spouses were male, and all four of the children were fathered by men.

And yes, that time she became a priest

We could hardly leave it out, could we? On one Late Late Show appearance O’Connor told Gay Byrne that she would have liked to have been a priest if she had not been a singer. A bishop from a breakaway independent Catholic group contacted her, and ordained her.

Mother Bernadette Mary, as she was then known, took her faith seriously: she announced in 2003 that she was quitting music altogether to train as a catechist.

Though her defection from the Irish Orthodox Catholic and Apostolic Church was never fully confirmed, it’s assumed she ditched the faith in 2005 when she released a reggae album and said that Rastafarianism saved her life.

She’s still obviously spiritual, though – she told Interview in 2005 that her mission was “to rescue God from religion.”