Dolores Mary Eileen O'Riordan was an Irish singer, musician and songwriter.
127 Facts About Dolores O'Riordan
2.
Dolores O'Riordan was best known as the lead vocalist and lyricist for the alternative rock band the Cranberries.
3.
Dolores O'Riordan began to perform as a soloist in her church choir before leaving secondary school to join the Cranberries in 1990.
4.
Dolores O'Riordan struggled with depression and the pressure of her own success, and was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in 2015.
5.
Dolores O'Riordan subsequently released her last album with the group, Something Else.
6.
Dolores O'Riordan died from drowning due to alcohol intoxication in January 2018.
7.
Dolores O'Riordan was honoured with the Ivor Novello International Achievement award, and in the months following her death, she was named "The Top Female Artist of All Time" on Billboard's Alternative Songs chart.
8.
Dolores Mary Eileen O'Riordan was born on 6 September 1971 in Ballybricken, County Limerick, the youngest of nine children, two of whom died in infancy.
9.
Dolores O'Riordan's mother, Eileen, was a school caterer.
10.
Dolores O'Riordan was raised in a devout Roman Catholic family, and was named by her mother in reference to the Lady of the Seven Dolours.
11.
Dolores O'Riordan grew up in the neighboring Archdiocese of Cashel and Emly.
12.
Dolores O'Riordan started with traditional Irish music and playing the Irish tin whistle when she went to school.
13.
At the age of twelve, Dolores O'Riordan began piano lessons, and then later, achieved Grade 4 in Practical and Grade 8 in Theory.
14.
Dolores O'Riordan sat every day at the piano in the main hall to play, then her classmates sat around her after having lunch to listen to her sing.
15.
Dolores O'Riordan described having a strict daily routine through her teenage years that consisted of going to piano lessons, going to church and doing homework.
16.
Dolores O'Riordan later admitted that she had neglected her school lessons in favour of writing music and songs, although at school she became head girl.
17.
Around this time, Dolores O'Riordan divided the rest of her schedule between assisting her mother, learning the accordion from her dad, and part-time employment at clothing shops.
18.
Dolores O'Riordan then told the remaining members that his girlfriend knew a girl who was looking for a band playing original material.
19.
Dolores O'Riordan sang a couple of songs that she had written and she did a Sinead O'Connor song, "Troy".
20.
Dolores O'Riordan was still a student at Laurel Hill Colaiste FCJ secondary school when she first joined the band.
21.
Dolores O'Riordan had set her sights on the musical life and her desire to be in "a band with no barriers, where I could write my own songs", she told The Guardian in 1995.
22.
Early in 1994, Dolores O'Riordan injured her cruciate ligament in a ski accident in the Alps' Val-d'Isere and underwent major surgery.
23.
Dolores O'Riordan stood alone in the countdown's history for sixteen years.
24.
Dolores O'Riordan reached her commercial peak with No Need to Argue, the top-selling album worldwide in the first semester of 1995, and the world's best selling album of the year by a European artist.
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Dolores O'Riordan has been recognised as a style icon, sporting a pixie cut or buzzed hair in the 1990s, and performing barefoot, saying "it just feels comfortable and honest to pull your toes along the ground".
26.
Billboard's William Goodman described Dolores O'Riordan performing "Barefoot and strutting onstage, an Irish warrior poet with a bleached blonde pixie cut, gold chain necklace, singing without a flinch, as if it were ordained".
27.
The New York Times mentioned that Dolores O'Riordan was responsible for a large portion of Dr Martens boots sales in the 1990s.
28.
On 23 March 1995, Dolores O'Riordan appeared on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine.
29.
Dolores O'Riordan publicly told Irish Examiner, "I was very depressed and I was extremely anorexic on that record, and as it came out I got progressively worse".
30.
Dolores O'Riordan was the one who made the decision to take a break, although their management and record company "went mental", the rest of the group supported her.
31.
On 15 December 2001, Dolores O'Riordan performed solo in the Vatican as part of the annual Vatican Christmas concert for Pope John Paul II.
32.
Dolores O'Riordan was accompanied at the Clarence Hotel by Ali Hewson, and its founder and executive director, Adi Roche.
33.
Dolores O'Riordan wrote and recorded the song in spring 2001 after seeing images shared with her by Hewson and Roche of children born with congenital anomalies and illnesses caused by the Chernobyl nuclear disaster of 26 April 1986.
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Dolores O'Riordan was supported by the Millennium Symphony Orchestra on the three songs, directed by Renato Serio, and by the Summertime Gospel Choir on "Adeste Fideles".
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Dolores O'Riordan stated she had become a prisoner of her own celebrity and did not find a balance in her life.
36.
Dolores O'Riordan enjoyed being treated "like any ordinary person" living in Canada, and then became a volunteer at her children's school.
37.
In 2003, Dolores O'Riordan recruited Canadian music producer Dan Brodbeck and musicians to develop new compositions for her solo project.
38.
Also included bassist Marco Mendoza, who had been a long time friend with Dolores O'Riordan and her husband; while Mendoza's father was a good friend of Dolores O'Riordan's father-in-law.
39.
On 6 March 2004, Dolores O'Riordan performed "Ave Maria" during the 54th International Song Festival at the Ariston Theater, Sanremo, in northern Italy.
40.
On 29 May 2004, Dolores O'Riordan performed during the first concert of the Festivalbar, in Milan, Italy.
41.
In 2004, Dolores O'Riordan worked with composer Angelo Badalamenti of Twin Peaks fame on the Evilenko soundtrack, providing vocals on several tracks, including "Angels Go to Heaven", the film's theme song.
42.
Dolores O'Riordan made a cameo appearance in the Adam Sandler comedy Click, released on 23 June 2006, as a wedding singer performing an alternate version of the Cranberries' "Linger", set to strings.
43.
Dolores O'Riordan performed on many televised live performances in 2007 in support of that record, and travelled to over 22 countries in Europe, North America and South America on the 2007 Dolores O'Riordan world tour.
44.
On 20 April 2007, Dolores O'Riordan made an appearance live on The Late Late Show on RTE in Dublin.
45.
Dolores O'Riordan appeared on 17 May 2007, on NBC's The Tonight Show with Jay Leno in Burbank, California, in an episode that aired on 19 May 2007.
46.
On 25 May 2007, Dolores O'Riordan performed during a live broadcast of Channel 7's Sunrise in Sydney, Australia.
47.
On 29 June 2007, Dolores O'Riordan took to the stage of Festivalbar in Catania, Italy.
48.
Dolores O'Riordan released her second album No Baggage, featuring 11 tracks, in August 2009.
49.
Dolores O'Riordan said of No Baggage "I probably haven't worn my heart on my sleeve like this since the second album No Need to Argue".
50.
On 25 August 2009, while promoting her solo album No Baggage in New York City on 101.9 RXP radio, Dolores O'Riordan announced the Cranberries Reunion World Tour of 107 concerts.
51.
In October 2009, Dolores O'Riordan attended, along with actresses Tessa Thompson and Emma Bates, an event at The Westwood Theatre in Ontario, after a screening of South Dakota: A Woman's Right to Choose, a film about teenage pregnancy and abortion.
52.
Dolores O'Riordan moderated a discussion with high school pupils, she remained neutral and allowed the girls to formulate their own opinions.
53.
In 2010, Dolores O'Riordan told Billboard magazine that playing with Fergal Lawler, Noel and Mike Hogan worked better dynamically with her voice.
54.
Dolores O'Riordan performed "Zombie" and "I Lied" with the Sinfonia Varsovia Orchestra, in Warsaw, Poland.
55.
At this point in her career, to keep up with her bookings, negotiations and finances, Dolores O'Riordan began to be managed by Danny Goldberg, former Kurt Cobain and Nirvana manager.
56.
Dolores O'Riordan celebrated the reunion by touring with the Cranberries across Asia in July 2011, where the crowd was "impressed with her wide vocal range and strong vocal control".
57.
On 22 March 2012, the Cranberries cancelled nine minutes before the show at the Enmore Theatre in Sydney, Dolores O'Riordan suffered from food poisoning and was unable to perform.
58.
In May 2012, the final two concerts of the North American tour of the Cranberries had to be postponed for a then undisclosed reason, which was later said to involve from Dolores O'Riordan's "hectic touring schedule"; this caused some uncertainty about the upcoming European leg of the tour.
59.
In November 2012, the extent to which her father's 2011 death was affecting Dolores O'Riordan was made public when she admitted in Le Telegramme that she was unable to perform "Ode to My Family" throughout the 32 shows of the second leg of the European tour; Dolores O'Riordan said "I hope to be able to sing it back one day, but for now, it's too soon".
60.
Dolores O'Riordan reached the final of the competition with her act Kellie Lewis, who finished in second place.
61.
In mid-January 2014, between shoots for The Voice, Dolores O'Riordan stated that she had written fifteen songs for a new solo album and she planned to go to Los Angeles to elaborate the start of the album.
62.
In mid-July 2014, Dolores O'Riordan had announced that she would not return to The Voice of Ireland for a second season due to her health condition affected by flights from Dublin to Canada during seven weeks of filming.
63.
In late 2017, Dolores O'Riordan confirmed her appearance at Billboard private event, which led devotees to believe she would soon performing again.
64.
Dolores O'Riordan was influenced by Gregorian chant at an early age, which remained her main influence until the end of her life.
65.
Months before she died, Dolores O'Riordan tested the resonance and the acoustics of the Glenstal Abbey church in Ireland to sing there.
66.
Dolores O'Riordan stated that this apprenticeship by this detachment of the world in a raw and devoted setting influenced a lot of her development as an artist and as a musician.
67.
Dolores O'Riordan referred to Presley and John Lennon as particularly large influences during her early years.
68.
Dolores O'Riordan had been influenced by the Kinks, Magazine, Siouxsie and the Banshees, and New Order.
69.
Dolores O'Riordan credited Johnny McEvoy's song "The Old Bog Road" as one of the most beautiful old Irish songs and praised the Pogues' songs.
70.
Dolores O'Riordan made a reference to Ireland's most famous poet, William Butler Yeats.
71.
Dolores O'Riordan stated the grunge decade was "so creatively it was a really great time", mentioning Pearl Jam, Blind Melon and Nirvana.
72.
Dolores O'Riordan wrote the song "I'm Still Remembering" six months after the death of Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain.
73.
In 2009, talking about her three favourite albums, Dolores O'Riordan mentioned the Smiths' album The Smiths, Depeche Mode's album Violator, and the original soundtrack of the film The Mission.
74.
Dolores O'Riordan drew her influences from everyday life, events that occurred in the world, or her friendly and romantic relationships.
75.
Dolores O'Riordan penned her first song, called "Calling", at the age of 12.
76.
Dolores O'Riordan was the lead lyricist and co-composer of the band's songs with guitarist Noel Hogan, although she wrote a lot of the song structures.
77.
Dolores O'Riordan described in 1993 that she chose to be a singer and songwriter for the creative aspect, "something new", saying that she would not have been happy singing traditional Irish music for a living.
78.
Dolores O'Riordan had a preference for solitude as an approach to writing songs.
79.
Dolores O'Riordan tended to write her ideas continuously through the day, although most of the melodies came in the night since she struggled with insomnia; and so, she had a history of sleeping pills dependence in the course of her career.
80.
Dolores O'Riordan experienced writer's block during months at a period of her life.
81.
Dolores O'Riordan came back a few hours later and accredited his work, then she took a microphone and started singing lyrics off the top of her head; Brodbeck stated: "it was always spur-of-the-moment, gut reaction stuff".
82.
Dolores O'Riordan was a mezzo-soprano, with a vocal range from B 2 to C 6.
83.
Dolores O'Riordan did not sing much in the 5th octave but rather in a range of vocal comfort.
84.
Dolores O'Riordan was familiar with the vocal belting of '90s alternative rock and was devoted to her love of falsetto.
85.
Dolores O'Riordan's voice was rather light without applying an uncomfortable weight, and she characteristically deployed a soft projection when she sang the lowest notes.
86.
Dolores O'Riordan's signature singing style integrated many elements, such as the lilting voice, mournful keening, glottal ornamentation and a distinctive attack on syllables.
87.
Dolores O'Riordan emphasised its breaks and curls, decorating the catchy melodies she wrote with florid vocal runs inherited from Celtic tradition.
88.
Dolores O'Riordan had never compromised her strong Irish accent, even when she was criticised for that.
89.
Ireland's Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said Dolores O'Riordan was "the voice of a generation".
90.
Noel Hogan described how Dolores O'Riordan tended to "layer a lot of harmonies, a lot of falsetto stuff" as soon as she first entered the recording studio, Xeric Studios, at the beginning of 1990.
91.
Dolores O'Riordan would add additional layers of vocal inflections over the existing main vocals as she went along.
92.
The voice recording protocol had evolved over the years, Dolores O'Riordan was worried about "oversinging and smothering the raw emotion in her delivery", as a result, she did not come to work in studios during daylight hours with Fergal Lawler and the two Hogan brothers.
93.
On 18 July 1994, Dolores O'Riordan married Canadian-born Don Burton, who was the former tour manager of Duran Duran.
94.
Dolores O'Riordan was interested in hurling and played the sport as a child.
95.
On 25 November 2011, Dolores O'Riordan's father died at his home in Limerick after six years of fighting cancer.
96.
In October 2013, Dolores O'Riordan told journalist and close friend Barry Egan in the Sunday Independent's Life magazine that she had attempted suicide by overdosing on medication, but "wanted to live for her kids".
97.
Dolores O'Riordan developed depression, deep self-loathing and suicidal thoughts over the years which were worsened by her accelerating career and led to anorexia.
98.
At her father's funeral in 2011, Dolores O'Riordan's abuser introduced himself to her and apologised for his actions.
99.
Dolores O'Riordan was treated by psychotherapist Beechy Colclough, who treated Michael Jackson and Elton John.
100.
Dolores O'Riordan's family moved back to Canada in November 2013, considering they were used to the outdoors and the wilderness.
101.
Towards the end of 2013, Dolores O'Riordan returned to live in Ireland, a decision that foreshadowed the end of her marriage.
102.
Dolores O'Riordan left Canada and moved to New York, first in a hotel in Union Square, then in Trump Tower.
103.
On 10 November 2014, Dolores O'Riordan was arrested and charged in connection with air rage on an Aer Lingus flight from JFK to Shannon Airport.
104.
Eileen Dolores O'Riordan stated that her daughter was in a fragile mental state and that medical results indicated there was no alcohol or drugs detected in her daughter's system.
105.
Later, Dolores O'Riordan told the media that she had been stressed from living in New York hotels following the end of her 20-year marriage.
106.
In January 2015, Dolores O'Riordan returned to the US, where she bought an apartment in the East Village of New York City.
107.
Also in 2015, Dolores O'Riordan developed a relationship with the US musician Ole Koretsky, with whom she shared the last years of her life.
108.
In 2017, Dolores O'Riordan bought a new house near her hometown of Limerick.
109.
In May 2017, Dolores O'Riordan publicly discussed her bipolar disorder, stating that she had been diagnosed in 2015.
110.
In September 2017, Dolores O'Riordan began composing a suicide note while drinking heavily and taking Lorazepam.
111.
At 2 am on 15 January 2018, Dolores O'Riordan had a phone call with her mother.
112.
On 21 January 2018, Dolores O'Riordan's funeral opened three days of mourning in Ireland.
113.
Dolores O'Riordan, wearing dark eyeshadow, with raven hair, was laid out in an open coffin wearing black and holding a set of pearl rosary beads.
114.
Dolores O'Riordan's songs were played, while photographs of the singer performing and one of her with Pope John Paul II were placed along the walls.
115.
Bono and Johnny Depp performed a tribute for Dolores O'Riordan ending the performance on "Linger", at the National Concert Hall in Dublin, Ireland, just hours after the sudden death of Dolores O'Riordan.
116.
Bono, Sinead O'Connor, Johnny Depp and Nick Cave gave Dolores O'Riordan a standing ovation at a birthday party for Shane MacGowan, singer of the Pogues.
117.
Dolores O'Riordan stated: "We don't want to continue without Dolores, so we're just going to leave after this".
118.
Dolores O'Riordan has been referred to as "one of the most distinctive voices in alternative rock history".
119.
Dolores O'Riordan brought an "inimitable" and "unique voice" to the 1990s' music scene and to rock music.
120.
Dolores O'Riordan is considered an "icon of Irish pop" and a "1990s rock icon", characterised by a wide spectrum of vocals resources.
121.
Dolores O'Riordan was credited for her innovative style embodied by her "measured vocal power, her honest, vulnerable songwriting", reinforced by her Irish accent, thus helping the Cranberries to rise "into worldwide stardom".
122.
Dolores O'Riordan referred to her as an Irish female icon.
123.
For contemporary Ireland's singers, Dolores O'Riordan is considered a "beacon for future generations of singers", stated Hot Press editorial writer Peter McGoran.
124.
The BBC added that Dolores O'Riordan was a major musical influence to Faye Wong, one of China's biggest pop stars.
125.
Dolores O'Riordan was regarded as a humanitarian activist advocating for children throughout the world; most of the songs of Dolores O'Riordan communicated her empathy with human suffering and reflected popular hope for peace.
126.
The Tim Parry Johnathan Ball Foundation for Peace stated that Dolores O'Riordan "left a legacy through her music that speaks for so many of us and called on all of us to follow a path of peace".
127.
On 19 February 2018, RTE One broadcast a 40-minute documentary entitled Dolores O'Riordan, including never-before-seen interviews, produced by Dave Fanning.