DOLORES O’RIORDAN 1971-2018
The voice of the Cranberries silenced suddenly at age 46,
Dolores O’Riordan, lead singer of Irish band the Cranberries, has died suddenly at the age of 46.
O’Riordan died Monday in London, England, where she was recording, her publicist said. A cause of death wasn’t immediately available.
The Limerick band formed in 1989 and became international stars in the 1990s with hits including “Zombie” and “Linger.” They sold more than 40 million records during their career. The band went on hiatus in 2003, when O’Riordan embarked on a solo career, but they reformed in 2009 and released two more albums, including last year’s Something Else.
In 1994, O’Riordan married Canadian Don Burton, former tour manager for Duran Duran. They lived part-time in Buckhorn, Ont., with their two children and a child from Burton’s previous relationship.
“I just wanted to experience life not being in the Cranberries. I wanted to switch off, get the hell away and be human,” O’Riordan told the Star’s Ben Rayner in 2012.
“People find it hard to understand why you would walk away from that. From the outside, you look like you have everything a band would want. But actually, we just wanted normality in our lives, to be able to go home and do what everybody else does.”
O’Riordan, a native of County Limerick, Ireland, and Burton separated in 2014, the same year she was arrested and taken off a flight at Shannon Airport in Ireland for head-butting and spitting on a police officer following an alleged air rage incident. She was eventually released with a fine but subsequently was reportedly diagnosed with bipolar disorder.
The Cranberries were slated to tour Europe and North America this past summer, but the tour was cancelled in July as O’Riordan recovered from an “ongoing back problem.”
In 2013, O’Riordan appeared as a judge on The Voice of Ireland and, in 2014, joined the group Jetlag, which featured former Smiths bassist Andy Rourke and eventually became D.A.R.K.