A COMMUNITY IN TOTAL SHOCK
YESTERDAY, the howling wind and the thrash of icy pellets on the windows were the only sounds inside an eerily empty Ballybricken Church.
But once upon a time this quiet, holy place was filled with the sound of an angel.
Long before Dolores O’Riordan’s haunting, otherworldly voice captivated and electrified millions of fans around the world as the charismatic frontwoman with The Cranberries, here, in her parish church in the small tight-knit village in which she grew up, she mesmerised her community.
In Dolores’s teenage years, whenever word got out that she was singing in the church choir of a Sunday, it was a full house, with not even standing room available, former neighbour Declan Browne recalled. The heating engineer, who lives in Ballybricken, says mournfully: ‘She was singing in that choir when she was 15 or 16 and when she was singing you couldn’t get into the church.
‘When she sang, her voice, you could hear it bellowing out of the church, it was so unusual, but definitely there were a lot more people turning up at Mass when they heard she was singing.’
Here in Ballybricken, the small community is devastated and in Limerick city the shock and sadness is palpable wherever you go, and among young and old.
Around Ballybricken, her close family, friends, local pubs and former primary school Caherelly National School, have all gone to ground out of respect to the O’Riordan family.
Declan, an acquaintance, said that when the world-famous singer would come home ‘she’d walk around and she’d stop and chat and she’d go out with her brothers – she wouldn’t be out singing, just out home and people would leave her alone.
‘I remember she used to work part time with her mother at a company, now closed – they made computer disks, in Raheen, and she worked nights.
‘I used to give her a lift home – she was about 17 at the time.
‘She used to talk the whole way home anyway – she talked about life, and music and trying to get into a band. She just wanted to sing and that was it. It’s truly awful sad what has happened.’
The Tricolour fluttered at Limerick City Hall where a book of condolences had been opened yesterday. Hundreds of emotional fans defied driving rain, sleet and hail – leaving work, school and college to pay their respects.
A massive queue for the ‘Queen of Limerick’ had formed by the time the book opened at 10am, with Mayor Stephen Keary being the first to sign a message dedicated to the tragic star. ‘It’s a day of mourning and sadness for Limerick,’ said the mayor, adding: ‘It’s a dark, dark day for the music industry and the world.’
Aedín Ní Bhriain, principal of allgirls secondary school Laurel Hill Colaiste, which Dolores attended, was also among the first to sign the book and spoke about how Dolores remained heavily involved in music at the school after she found fame, even asking the choir to sing at her wedding to Canadian ex Don Burton in 1994.
A portrait of Dolores, 46, is displayed in the school’s music room and pupils spoke this morning of how much she had inspired them as a musical icon and role model.
Ms Ní Bhriain said: ‘She was always proud of her roots, and of Limerick, and of being a past pupil of our school, so we are here today to remember her fabulous talent and express our sympathy with her family.’
Laurel Hill Leaving Cert music students Sophie O’Callaghan, Christina O’Brien and Ciara Deegan, also signed the book of condolence. ‘We’re just here to express our deepest sympathy to the (O’Riordan) family and to show how proud we are of Dolores and her being a past pupil and all she has done and achieved,’ said Sophie. ‘We all study music and we would listen to her songs and watch her performances.
‘There’s pictures of her in the music room and our teacher Ms Colgan always reminds us that she is a past pupil.’
She said The Cranberries singer was ‘definitely’ a role model for her and her fellow music students, adding, ‘we all strive to accomplish what she has.’
By 4pm, 700 people, many of them visibly upset, had visited City Hall to sign the book of condolences and leave personal messages, with more than 5,000 more leaving tributes in an online book. Musician Ray Murphy, who worked with Cranberries member Noel Hogan and met Dolores a number of times, came to City Hall to pay his respects.
‘She had a huge impact as a Limerick
‘She just wanted to sing and that was it’ ‘She was a wonderful mother’
person around the world in a creative way,’ he said. ‘It’s so sad. She was a wonderful mother, a daughter and a musician.
‘I bumped into her once or twice and worked with Noel – what a blow. They’ve lost someone who they’ve been with since they were teenagers – what a sad, sad time.’
Pensioners John King and Mary McEvoy, who are in their 70s, were shocked by Dolores’s death and appeared to be fighting back tears, as they spoke glowingly of their county’s much-loved daughter, and described the sudden loss as ‘sad and heartbreaking’.
In Limerick city’s most famous venue, Dolan’s, on the Dock Road, the street where Dolores also had an apartment, the singer’s sudden passing also hangs heavy.
Just last year she was a regular here, pootling about the venue with her hood pulled up, to avoid being recognised, as she rehearsed with her bandmates. Owner Mick Dolan opened the venue in 1994 so missed The Cranberries before they hit the big time, but Dolores’s three male bandmates were regulars at his bar and they booked his space for rehearsals last year.
‘She was in flying form, back writing brilliant songs and she was in no way finished,’ recalls Mick, still clearly shaken at the news. ‘Seeing her up on stage, she used every inch of it – she loved the music. All the lads were so happy being back together and Dolores was back to herself and it was all hunky dory and then this happens. Everyone is in utter shock.
‘No bands can come close to hers and to be a tiny little girl with such a huge voice and the first real woman to go out and do that and be political and have a voice – she wasn’t afraid to do it.
‘There are no words so explain how Limericks feels losing her.’
Now, locals who were once soothed by this voice of an angel each Sunday, are preparing to welcome their Queen of Limerick home one last time to bid her an emotional farewell.
Once Dolores’s body has been released to her family, it is believed her funeral Mass will be held here in Ballybricken and she will be buried at Caherelly Cemetery, alongside her father Terence.