Rebel with a cause: Irish singer Sinead O’Connor joins Sinn Fein, wants IRA-linked leaders out

DUBLIN – Sinead O’Connor, long a critic of church and state in Ireland, says she’s joining the Irish nationalist Sinn Fein party — and wants its leaders to step aside for younger voices free of IRA connections.

The 48-year-old singer, who recently released her 10th album “I’m Not Bossy, I’m the Boss,” says Sinn Fein is the only left-wing party able to steer Ireland toward social equality.

But O’Connor says senior figures Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness, who oversaw the outlawed Irish Republican Army, should retire. The 66-year-old Adams has led Sinn Fein since 1983.

She told Facebook followers: “There’d be a zillion per cent increase in membership of Sinn Fein if the leadership were handed over to those born from 1983-1985 onward and no one associated in people’s minds with frightful things.”