Sinéad O’Connor, Kate Nash and “Famine” — A Song That Refuses to Forget

Some songs exist simply to entertain. Others carry history inside them. Sinéad O’Connor’s “Famine” belongs firmly in the second category. Released on her 1994 album Universal Mother, the track was unlike an ordinary pop song. O’Connor combined spoken word, hip-hop-inspired rhythm and traditional ideas about Irish identity to confront the Great Hunger, colonial history and the emotional damage she believed had been carried through generations. Rather than treating history as something safely left in the past, she used music to ask what happens when a country has never fully processed what happened to its people. The Line of Best Fit

That willingness to say uncomfortable things was central to Sinéad O’Connor as an artist. She could be vulnerable one moment and confrontational the next, but there was usually a reason behind the intensity. “Famine” was not written as a history lesson in the conventional sense. It was O’Connor presenting an argument about Ireland, memory and trauma through music. Some of the historical claims and language in the song are deliberately forceful and have been debated, but the heart of the piece is unmistakable: people cannot properly understand themselves if important parts of their history are forgotten or ignored.

More than three decades later, Kate Nash returned to that song.

Following O’Connor’s death in 2023, Nash revisited her music and found herself particularly drawn to “Famine”. Nash has Irish family connections through her mother, who was born in Dublin, and in recent years she has been exploring that side of her identity more deeply through her own music. She has spoken about growing up with Irish dancing, holidays in Ireland and music such as Christy Moore and The Dubliners around her. Kate Nash

Instead of choosing one of Sinéad’s more famous songs, Nash chose one of her most challenging.

Her version of “Famine” was released on 10 April 2026, after she had performed it at a sold-out show at London’s Roundhouse. It was not intended to be an exact recreation. Nash added an original verse of her own, bringing the song into another generation while keeping Sinéad’s central message intact. She also played tin whistle, remarkably returning to the first instrument she had learned. Kate Nash

The recording surrounds Nash with unmistakably Irish sounds. Bodhrán, harp, banjo, uilleann pipes and fiddle sit alongside bass, drums, synthesisers and electronic production. That mixture feels appropriate for a song connecting history with the present: traditional instruments are not placed inside a museum; they live beside contemporary production. Kate Nash

There is also something significant about one female songwriter carrying another female songwriter’s words forward.

Kate Nash and Sinéad O’Connor are very different artists from different musical generations. Sinéad could move from almost whispered intimacy to a voice that seemed capable of cutting straight through everything around it. Nash first became widely known through the conversational, unmistakably British indie-pop writing of songs such as “Foundations”, later moving through punk, rock, theatre-influenced pop and independent music.

Yet there is a connection between them. Neither has seemed particularly interested in behaving exactly as the music industry expects a female performer to behave.

Sinéad repeatedly used her platform to talk about subjects much larger than record sales. Kate Nash has likewise become increasingly outspoken about musicians, the industry, identity and issues she considers important. Covering “Famine” therefore feels less like Nash borrowing an old song and more like entering a conversation Sinéad began years earlier.

Nash has said that her intention was to honour Sinéad’s voice and continue spreading the message rather than replacing it. Her version also became connected to a wider project exploring her Irish heritage. During 2026 she performed new material in Ireland, with shows and appearances connected to that developing body of work. RTE

Perhaps that is what makes this cover particularly interesting.

A cover version normally asks, “What can I do differently with this song?”

This one asks another question:

“Why does this song still need to be sung?”

Sinéad O’Connor recorded “Famine” in the 1990s because she believed remembering was necessary before genuine healing could happen. More than thirty years later, Kate Nash heard those words and decided they still deserved an audience.

The voices are different. The generations are different. The musical surroundings have changed.

But the conversation continues.

And in that sense, Kate Nash’s version may be one of the strongest tributes she could have made to Sinéad O’Connor. She did not simply sing one of Sinéad’s songs because it was beautiful or famous. She chose one that demanded something from the listener.

Sinéad used music to remember.

Kate Nash has picked up that memory and carried it forward.