ONE OF IRELAND’S finest singers, Limerick’s Dolores O’Riordan, today died at the shockingly young age of 46.
Lead singer with The Cranberries for nearly 30 years, O’Riordan’s unmistakable voice was the soundtrack to an Irish generation.
Born the youngest of seven children in Ballybricken, Limerick, on 6 September 1971, O’Riordan underwent a strict Catholic upbringing, something she said was probably a good thing in that it stopped her “from becoming an adult too quickly”.
She first joined The Cranberries, in one of their earlier guises, in 1990 aged 18, following an audition for the ages (“Okay boys, show me your stuff,” she apparently told the band’s three original members – later that evening ‘Linger’ was born).
The band would become one of Irish music’s hottest exports throughout the 90s, with songs like ‘Linger’ (above), ‘Dreams’, and ‘Zombie’, along with five studio albums, marking them out as international stars.
During that period they sold 40 million albums, while Zombie, an aggressively anti-war epic inspired by the IRA’s Warrington bomb in 1993, went number one in five countries.
The band took a hiatus from 2003, before regrouping briefly in 2009.
In recent years, O’Riordan’s troubled persona tended to make more headlines than her singing – the most recent incident of which saw her arrested at Shannon Airport in February 2016 over an alleged ‘air rage’ incident.
A planned tour for 2017 was cancelled due to health issues surrounding the singer. Nevertheless, she had seemed in good spirits prior to Christmas.
“Hi All, Dolores here. Feeling good! I did my first bit of gigging in months at the weekend, performed a few songs at the Billboard annual staff holiday party in New York with the house band,” her last Facebook entry, posted before the holidays, read.
The band had recently played in South America, with the singer tweeting pictures of a show in Lima, Peru.
All of which made her death earlier today in London all the more shocking. No details of have as yet been released.
Speaking in tribute, President Michael D Higgins described O’Riordan as having “an immense influence” in Ireland and internationally.
“To all those who follow and support Irish music, Irish musicians and the performing arts her death will be a big loss,” the President said.
She is survived by three children – a marriage to Don Burton, former manager of Duran Duran, ended after 20 years in 2014.
Rest in peace.
With © – AFP, 2018
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