Sinéad Maria O'Carroll (born 14 May 1973) is an Irish singer and businesswoman. She is best known for being a member of the
girl group
A girl group is a music act featuring two or more women in music, female singers who generally vocal harmony, harmonize together. The term "girl group" is also used in a narrower sense in the United States to denote the wave of American female p ...
B*Witched.
Career
1998–2002: B*Witched
In 1998,
Edele Lynch formed the girl group Butterfly Farm with her twin sister
Keavy Lynch and O'Carroll. The trio, who later changed their name to
B*Witched, began writing and recording together, but soon realised that there was "someone missing". Upon Keavy's suggestion, they asked
Lindsay Armaou to come for an audition and she played a tape recording of a song she had written. The other girls liked it and Lindsay became the fourth member of the band. Although the official B*Witched website gave Sinéad's year of birth as 1978, she later admitted that this was a lie. She was not the only member of the group to lie about her age, however; when the group started out, Lindsay claimed to be 17, despite actually being 19.
B*Witched enjoyed huge success worldwide, becoming the first girl group in history to have their first four singles all go to number one after "
C'est la Vie", "
Rollercoaster", "
To You I Belong" and "
Blame It on the Weatherman" all topped the
UK Singles Chart. Their
self-titled debut album also topped the
UK Albums Chart
The Official Albums Chart is the United Kingdom's industry-recognised national record chart for album, albums. Entries are ranked by sales and audio streaming. It was published for the first time on 22 July 1956 and is compiled every week by the O ...
and peaked at number 12 on the US
''Billboard'' 200. B*Witched split up in 2002 after being dropped by their record label
Sony Music
Sony Music Entertainment (SME), commonly known as Sony Music, is an American multinational music company owned by Japanese conglomerate Sony Group Corporation. It is the recording division of Sony Music Group, with the other half being the ...
and having sold over 3 million albums worldwide.
2003–2011: Business
In 2004 O'Carroll became manager of the girl band Minx, but they failed to sign with a record label. In 2006, she founded The Star Academy, a music school in
Dublin
Dublin is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. Situated on Dublin Bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, and is bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, pa ...
with singing and dancing classes for children and teenagers. In 2007 she made a guest in one episode of soap opera ''
Fair City'' as Sarah, a hotel receptionist.
2012–present: Return with B*Witched
On 18 October 2012, it was announced that B*Witched would reunite for an
ITV2
ITV2 is a Television in the United Kingdom, British free-to-air television channel owned by ITV Digital Channels, a division of ITV plc. It was launched on 7 December 1998. For a number of years, it had the largest audience share after the fiv ...
series entitled ''
The Big Reunion'', along with five other pop groups of their time –
911,
Liberty X,
Blue
Blue is one of the three primary colours in the RYB color model, RYB colour model (traditional colour theory), as well as in the RGB color model, RGB (additive) colour model. It lies between Violet (color), violet and cyan on the optical spe ...
,
Five and
Atomic Kitten. The show would feature each group telling their stories of their times in their respective bands, before rehearsing together ahead of one major comeback performance at the
Hammersmith Apollo
The Hammersmith Apollo, currently called the Eventim Apollo for sponsorship reasons, and formerly and still commonly known as the Hammersmith Odeon, is a live entertainment performance venue, originally built as a cinema called the Gaumont Pa ...
.
B*Witched had to hold "emotional clear the air" talks before reforming.
Edele admitted that "The biggest anxiety about doing this – there's only one, and that's Sinéad." She admitted that she and Sinéad had fallen out in 2006 and had not spoken to each other since. Lindsay also said: "Some of the issues we didn't even know were necessarily there until we were faced with this opportunity that we have to work together again, then we were like, 'Oh, OK, in order for us to do this then we have to sort a few things out.' It all just came up. It's been difficult to get to this point. There's been a lot of talking, a lot of talking. But we're here now. It's very surreal being called B*Witched again because it's been 12 years."
Due to the success of ''The Big Reunion'', the bands embarked on an
arena around the UK and Ireland in May 2013. The tour did not initially include Ireland and Northern Ireland, but two extra dates were later added in
Dublin
Dublin is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. Situated on Dublin Bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, and is bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, pa ...
and
Belfast
Belfast (, , , ; from ) is the capital city and principal port of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan and connected to the open sea through Belfast Lough and the North Channel (Great Britain and Ireland), North Channel ...
, marking B*Witched's first performance in their home country in over 10 years. B*Witched joined Five, 911, Atomic Kitten,
Honeyz and Liberty X for a "Christmas party tour" in December.
On 3 December 2019, it was announced that O'Carroll would appear on the
fourth season of the Irish edition of
''Dancing with the Stars''. O'Carroll and her professional partner,
Ryan McShane
Ryan McShane (born 22 January 1985) is a Northern Irish dancer and Choreography (dance), choreographer. He, alongside his professional partner, Ksenia Zsikhotska, were the 2016 United Kingdom & British Latin Professional Champions and British Sh ...
, were eliminated on 23 February 2020, placing 7th overall.
Personal life
O'Carroll has been married to Mike Rahman since June 2006.
They have a son, Zain, and a daughter, Samarah.
She practises
reiki
Reiki is a pseudoscientific form of energy healing, a type of alternative medicine originating in Japan. Reiki practitioners use a technique called ''palm healing'' or ''hands-on healing'' through which, according to practitioners, a " unive ...
and has studied
Emotional Freedom Techniques.
Filmography
Television
References
External links
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:OCarroll, Sinead
1973 births
Living people
Irish pop singers
Irish women pop singers
Musicians from County Dublin
21st-century Irish singers
21st-century Irish women singers
B*Witched members