By RUSSELL BAILLIE

Even with the shortness of time and the long distance between us, talking to Sinead O'Connor proves an intense, exhausting exercise. It's disarming from the moment the provocative Irish singer's surprisingly deep voice comes down the line from her Dublin home, where it's just gone 10 am — "I got up a short while ago so I am not responsible for anything I say," she laughs for the first and last occasion in our allocated time — to the final goodbye where she insists we pass on a big "Jah Rastafari" to her former Kiwi housekeepers.

In between, the conversation swings alarmingly.

One minute it's Sinead the Deadly Earnest — glancing at the transcript later, the words "child abuse," for example, pop up seven times, with "dysfunctional family" and "survivor" not far behind.

And there are frequent invocations of her musical saints — Bob Dylan, Bob Marley, John Lennon and Kurt Cobain all get repeated mentions. So do Alanis Morissette ("Alanis is basically Sinead with hair," she offers proudly), Britney Spears and Princess Diana.

Then there's a reflective 33-year-old who talks about the confrontational actions of her 20s as if it's ancient history: "I feel the need to defend that little girl very strongly. That was a very brave girl who did all that stuff." Every time she utters the word "controversy" she adds the rider, "in inverted commas."

But first we talk about the reason for this rare chat, her new offering Faith and Courage. It's a surprisingly accessible album, considering the ups and downs of her life since its predecessor. Yes, after all that, a pop record?

"It is and it also isn't. It's a bit of a trip in a way. The first few songs are poppy. Once you get to track 6, something else kicks in. There is another spirit with the arrival of the whistle," she says, referring to the traditional Irish instrument she's often employed in her musical approach, which has long mixed rock, hip-hop beats and reggae basslines.

But lyrically it's a typically soul-baring collection and it's a rare song that doesn't begin with the personal pronoun. Interestingly, on one track, The Lamb's Book Of Life, O'Connor sings: "Words can't express how sorry I am/If I ever caused pain to anybody."

What's this? The singer apologising for the outlandish acts and outspokeness which has risked making Sinead the Celebrity more interesting than Sinead the Singer?

"No, not at all. What it is acknowledging — how can I explain it properly? — I am not saying I am sorry for anything I did, but what I am saying is, it was necessary to do all of the things I did in order for me to survive and in order for me to help other survivors, right?

"And so I am not sorry at all and in fact I am proud. But I am sorry that things which were necessary for me to do did cause pain to other people. There's a clear difference there.

So, no regrets ... for any of it?

"I have no regrets. Only the fact that I
didn't have more love for myself and not be so hurt by you guys. The only regret: I was too young to understand that the media are animals, basically. I think the death of Princess Diana actually says it all — they don't like strong women."

Yes, yes. But let's head to Earth for a minute. Would she accept that with her headline-making habits and her increasingly harrowing recordings through the 90s, those who became fans early on might have found it a confusing trip since?

"I can't say what's it's like for anyone in this world other than me. I'm not in the business of trying to make everyone love me."

"I make records that hopefully can provide some healing and hope, in this case some sunshine for people who have been through similar experiences as I have been through."

Meaning?

"I make records who are designed for a specific audience, namely adult survivors of child abuse or dysfunctional families, frankly.

"I think people who don't identify with that may not identify with me or my music, or understand what all the headlines have been about, or what all the 'controversy' has been about.

"But I think those who come from backgrounds like I came from can identify strongly with the lot without being thrown off-course.

"I never was a pop singer. That is never what I was on about. I can't allow that to stop me doing my job which is, as I see it, to use my voice to help those who need help."

But how can pop music, even your particularly spiritual take on it, really "help"?

"Well, the fact that Nothing Compares 2 U was a huge hit single wasn't really meant to happen. Therefore I freak a lot of people out because I am someone who slipped into the mainstream completely by accident. They did not know what they were getting.

"They didn't realise that they had a little punk on their hands and I wanted it to be very clear that, although I was in the mainstream, I was not at all one of those Celine Dion-type people who want to do nothing but sing 'oh baby baby,' and that I am interested in actually helping humanity."

About this point, you worry that O'Connor could go on like this all night and and are thankful that your time is up.

But not before one last question which she is free to take as seriously as she wishes: Has she ever been the least bit mad?

"What is mad in your dictionary?"she shoots back, unamused.

"Mad as opposed to which model of sane? Whose model of sane? I think I've been human."

* Sinead O'Connor's Faith and Hope album is available now.

Sinead's decade

(the highlights)

1990: Having released debut album the Lion and the Cobra three years previously, O'Connor's second album I Do Not Know What I Haven't Got delivers single Nothing Compares 2 U into the world's pop charts. While touring the US she refuses to perform at a venue which requires the national anthem to be played before concerts. In the furore which
follows, Frank Sinatra threatens to "kick her ass."

1992: O'Connor starts the year by storming into the Irish parliament to have her say over an abortion controversy about a 14 year-old rape victim. Appearing on American NBC's Saturday Night Live in October, she rips up a photo of the Pope, shouting: "Fight the real enemy." A fortnight later she is booed off stage at a Bob Dylan tribute concert at New York's Madison Square Garden. And in December she donates her Hollywood mansion to help the starving in Somalia.

1993: She makes a half-hearted suicide bid which she later explains as being in "the cry-for-help zone" and takes out a full page advertisment in The Irish Times to explain her mental state.

1994: O'Connor seeks treatment in a London drug and alcohol rehabiliation
clinic.

1997: O'Connor appears as a vulgar Virgin Mary in Neil Jordan movie The Butcher Boy.

1999: She becomes embroiled in a custody battle over daughter Roisin with the girl's father, writer John Waters. She is ordained as a priest — "Mother Bernadette Mary" — in a dissident Roman Catholic group, the Latin Tridentine church.

Review of Faith and Courage