The Cranberries’ lead singer Dolores O’Riordan dies at 46

Dolores’s untimely death aged just 46 has stunned colleagues and music fans alike, with The Cranberries saying they are “devastated” in an emotional statement.

Though they eventually divorced, O’Riordan kept her connections to Canada.

“She was very shy, very quiet, hadn’t much confidence”, she said. Medical records given to the court at her trial indicated she was mentally ill at the time.

Irish president Michael D Higgins called her death “a big loss”, saying O’Riordan’s work with The Cranberries had “had an enormous influence on rock and pop music in Ireland and internationally”.

On the iTunes Canada album charts, there are four Cranberries albums in the Top 10, seven in the Top 50 and both of O’Riordan’s solo albums were charting at #64 and #65 respectively.

They reunited six years later and are famous for their hits Zombie and Linger. “Her voice and her contribution to music will be remembered far beyond her native county for many years to come”. The song had transported us.

Catherine Sexton described O’Riordan as “a real limerick lady, a true Limerick lady, and a handsome soul”.

She joined the band while still in her teens, after spotting an advert for a female singer for rock band The Cranberry Saw Us.

Michael O’Dwyer who knows the O’Riordan family said he had been stunned to hear the news of her sudden death.

She was an iconic female front woman, and globally recognised for her distinctive voice and an array of eye-catching hairstyles that ranged from short crops to full length waves in every imaginable colour. “Her memory will live on”, he said. The Irish leader has released a statement, which reads: “It is with great sadness that I have learned of the death of Dolores O’Riordan, musician, singer and songwriter”.

The band, which formed in 1989, went on a hiatus in 2003 with O’Riordon telling in a 2012 interview that “we were stuck in a rut. She didn’t think like that at all”.

Record label boss Dan Waite said today the star was joking on the phone just hours before she was discovered dead.

“She was a very fearless woman writing on certain issues”, he said. “You couldn’t help but be blown away by the song”.

One of the first to sign the book was the principal of the singer’s old school, Laurel Hill Colaiste in Limerick. She even attempted suicide by overdose in 2013.

“The news of her passing is devastating and my thoughts are with Don, her ex-husband, her children, and her mother”, Mr Waite went on. She grew up in Ballybricken, which is actually in the Archdiocese of Cashel and Emly, but Limerick city, all of Limerick, held her very dear in its heart.

Critics called O’Riordan out for singing in her Limerick accent (which can be strong and hard for foreigners to understand), but she stuck with it … and it paid off big time!