The Cranberries

[Serena]

DOLORES O’Riordan, the iconic rock star who tragically died this week, will lie in repose in her native Limerick this weekend, before her funeral takes place on Tuesday, the Limerick Leader can exclusively reveal.

Thousands of people from the city and county are expected to file past the coffin carrying the remains of the Limerick woman who passed away in London last Monday.

A public reposal will take place this Sunday in St Joseph’s Church on O’Connell Avenue from 12.30pm to 4pm.

The church in the city is located close to Laurel Hill Colaiste FCJ secondary school where the rock star fostered her musical talents.


 
A photograph of the Limerick woman, who went on to become an international star, will be placed on top of the coffin carrying her remains.

On Monday evening the remains of the mother-of-three will lie in repose at Cross’ Funeral Home, Ballyneety from 4pm to 8pm with removal to St Ailbe’s Church, Ballybricken.

Requiem Mass takes place on Tuesday at 11.30am in Ballybricken.

Dolores’ final resting place will be Caherelly Cemetery where her father Terence was laid to rest in 2011. There will be a private family burial at the cemetery.

The remains of the Limerick woman are being transported from the UK to Ireland and all funeral arrangements are subject to weather conditions.
 
This week Dolores’ mother Eileen and family expressed their heartfelt thanks to the people of Limerick for their love and support since their tragic loss.

Speaking for the first time since the singer’s untimely death, Eileen O’Riordan and her family told the Limerick Leader that the outpouring of tributes, prayers and kind sentiments from across the world, and particularly from the people of Dolores’ home county and city, has been “a great source of comfort” to them.

“We want to thank all the people of Limerick who have remembered Dolores this week. The people who queued to sign the book of condolence - some of them standing in the rain - it has meant a huge amount to us and has been a great source of comfort,” Eileen and her family said.

Dolores is predeceased by her father Terence and is very deeply regretted by her mother Eileen, children Taylor, Molly and Dakota, their father Don, brothers Terence, Brendan, Donal, Joseph and PJ, and sister Angela, brother-in-law, sisters-in-law, nieces, nephews, all other relatives and a large circle of friends.

[Serena]

All details have just been announced by the Limerick Leader today.
Even more details on journal.ie

Schedule will thus be as follows:

Sunday 21st – 12:30pm to 4pm, public reposal @ St Joseph’s Church, Limerick
Monday 22nd – 4pm to 8pm, public reposal @ Cross’ Funeral Home, Ballyneety
Tuesday 23rd – 11:30am, private funeral and burial reserved to extended family and close friends @ Church of Saint Ailbe, Ballybricken

Funeral mass will be broadcast live by Limerick FM Radio and should be available for all fans worldwide to watch on a “public address system that will be set up” (streaming website?).

[Serena]

«Creo que después de la muerte regresaré como un ángel protector. Me gustaría guiar a la gente o proteger a las personas que pasan por experiencias similares en la vida, susurrar en su oído y darles consejos sobre cómo lidiar con las cosas». Así se despidió Dolores O’Riordan en una entrevista de 2014, en la que también profetizó que no llegaría a cumplir los cincuenta. Aquellas palabras que pasaron desapercibidas hace cuatro años hoy se leen con desgarro, con la rabia del que sabe que algo más se pudo haber hecho para evitar el triste final de la cantante de los Cranberries. Ya nunca volveremos a escuchar su voz única e inimitable, ni tampoco podremos saber cuáles eran sus consejos para batallar con algo tan terrible como las secuelas del abuso sexual, una experiencia que sin duda marcó su infancia, y que dejó unas huellas, un dolor que quizá nunca pudo superar.

Dolores nació en el seno de una familia curtida en tragedias. Cuando llegó a este mundo, el 6 de septiembre de 1971 (en Ballybricken, una localidad de gran tradición gaélica del condado irlandés de Limmerick), dos de sus hermanos mayores ya habían fallecido prematuramente, y su padre estaba postrado en una silla de ruedas tras un accidente de tráfico sufrido tres años atrás.

Tortura en silencio
Cuando tenía ocho años, un vecino de confianza de su misma urbanización, amigo de sus padres, empezó a abusar de ella. Y como tantas otras víctimas sufrió esa tortura en silencio durante semanas, meses, e incluso años. Hasta que la pesadilla terminó un buen día de 1983, al poco de cumplir los doce.


En su adolescencia fue una chica de pocos amigos, muy introvertida, que lucía un look desafiante con botas Doc Martens y pelo corto. Esa estética fue precisamente una de las cosas que llamó la atención de sus compañeros de Cranberries, cuando acudió a una audición en la que buscaban nuevo cantante. Su talento vocal hizo el resto, y en 1993 debutaban oficialmente con «Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Can’t We?», disco que los lanzó al estrellato. Un éxito que dos años después fue ampliamente superado por «No need to argue», cuya tarjeta de presentación fue el inolvidable single «Zombie».

Un gran futuro esperaba a The Cranberries, pero los miembros del grupo pronto empezaron a darse cuenta de que Dolores era una mujer inestable. Anorexia, crisis nerviosas, adicción al alcohol, depresión, altercados y pensamientos suicidas persiguieron a la cantante durante toda las giras de la banda, en una espiral que ella siempre achacó a los abusos que sufrió de niña. De hecho, mucho tiempo antes de hacer público su pasado ya escribió canciones como «Fee Fi Fo» (del álbum «Bury the Hatchet», 1999) donde hablaba explícitamente sobre el tema. Pero no fue hasta 2013 cuando decidió contarlo en una entrevista. «Siento que me he quitado un gran peso de encima, y que me va a ayudar mucho abrirme y confesárselo a toda la gente que compró mis álbumes y que me quiere», dijo tras relatar su experiencia animada por sus tres hijos.

Ese mismo año, sin embargo, intentó suicidarse con una sobredosis de pastillas. Sólo unos meses después, ya en 2014, su marido Don Burton (que había sido manager de Duran Duran) le pidió el divorcio. Y 2015 no fue mejor: fue cuando los médicos llegaron a la conclusión de que sufría trastorno bipolar, dejándola sin certezas acerca del verdadero origen de sus problemas mentales.

El pasado lunes, la artista irlandesa estaba en Londres para grabar la voz de una versión de «Zombie» a cargo del grupo Bad Wolves. Pero no llegó a la grabación. Ahora se esperan los resultados de la autopsia, que podrían tardar «meses» en llegar. Mientras, por la red ya circulan rumores de que habría muerto por envenenamiento intencional con fentanilo, un analgésico que puede ser cincuenta veces más fuerte que la heroína. Son rumores poco fiables por ahora. Pero por desgracia, terriblemente verosímiles.

[Serena]

Olé Koretsky y Dolores O'Riordan eran pareja y compañeros de grupo. Además de The Cranberries, la cantante formaba parte de la banda D.A.R.K, donde tocaba con Koretsky, su novio, y Andy Rourke.

El pasado lunes, la noticia de la repentina muerte de la cantante mientras se encontraba en el estudio de grabación, cayó como un jarro de agua fría para los fans. En apenas unos días, las ventas de los discos de O'Riordan con The Cranberries se dispararon un 900.000 por ciento.

Después de que numerosos artistas publicasen imágenes y textos homenajeando a la cantante, ahora ha sido su pareja Ole Koretsky quien ha querido despedirse de ella con un emotivo mensaje:

"Mi amiga, compañera, y el amor de mi vida se ha ido. Mi corazón está roto y es irreparable. Dolores es hermosa. Su arte es hermoso. Su familia es hermosa. La energía de ella sigue irradiando es innegable. Estoy perdido. La extraño mucho. Continuaré tropezando con este planeta por un tiempo sabiendo que no hay lugar real para mí aquí ahora", recoge parte del extenso mensaje que se ha publicado en la página oficial de su banda D.A.R.K.

[Serena]

La iglesia de San José en el condado irlandés de Limerick ha abierto una capilla ardiente para que los ciudadanos puedan despedirse de la líder del grupo The Cranberries, Dolores O'Riordan, fallecida el pasado lunes a los 46 años.

Ese templo acoge desde las 12.30 GMT el féretro con los restos mortales de O'Riordan, para que sus seguidores pudieran rendir tributo a la artista irlandesa, cuyo cuerpo sin vida fue hallado en un hotel de la capital británica. La madre de O'Riordan y sus cinco hermanos acompañaron el féretro hasta la iglesia, donde el obispo Brendan Leahy los esperaba.

Está previsto que el funeral de O'Riordan tenga lugar el próximo martes en su pueblo natal de Ballybricken, en el mismo condado de Limerick. La muerte de la cantante ha causado gran conmoción en Irlanda, donde se la recuerda como la "voz de toda una generación" y como un icono mundial de la música en la década de los 90 del siglo XX.

La artista tenía tres hijos con el representante del grupo británico Duran Duran, Don Burton, de quien se separó en 2014 tras 20 años de matrimonio. Las autoridades forenses del Reino Unido han efectuado "varias pruebas" para determinar las causas de su muerte aunque los resultados no se conocerán hasta dentro de unos meses.

Según informó el lunes su representante, O'Riordan se encontraba en Londres para participar en "una breve sesión de grabación" el día siguiente, cuando tenía previsto poner su voz a una versión del conocido tema de The Cranberries "Zombie", interpretada por la banda de rock estadounidense Bad Wolves.

[Serena]

The Cranberries frontwoman Dolores O'Riordan was in London to discuss plans for the band's upcoming studio album when she died, her publicist has confirmed.

In a statement, the publicist said: "Whilst the primary purpose of Dolores's trip to London last Sunday evening was for a studio mixing session on Monday and Tuesday with Martin 'Youth' Glover on a recently recorded D.A.R.K. album, it has emerged that while in London she was also due to meet with The Cranberries record label, BMG to discuss plans for the release of a new Cranberries studio album that she had been working on with the band in recent months."

[Serena]

Aweek last Wednesday she emailed: "Love to meet up." I was going to go down to Limerick and have lunch with her later this month. That lunch will never happen now.

Heartbreaking to imagine Dolores O'Riordan's short, brilliant life is truly over. Heartbreaking to think that she is gone forever, this beautiful young woman with more talent in her little finger than a dozen Beyonces, this voice of a generation who could sing like an angel with a damaged wing soaring over Mount Olympus.

This forever lost soul, who was finding her way back after maybe wandering off the path in life, as we all do sometimes.

"I'm happy in Limerick now," she emailed a week last Wednesday. I was happy for her because I loved her and because I knew she had been through a personal hell over the last decade. So Dolores, more than anyone perhaps, deserved happiness. She had her troubles. They were well documented. She was human, just like the rest of us. We were friends for almost 17 years. Whenever she wanted to confess something to the world about herself, however shocking, I was her confessor in the Sunday Independent. I would have helped her any way I could. Sometimes, sadly, it was like that Elvis Presley line from Heartbreak Hotel: 'They been so long on Lonely Street, they'll never get back'. We talked via email during the last week of her life. She said she needed to have goals to look forward to and how she was feeling a lot better now. She said she had stopped looking back. It was great to talk to her.

Whenever I emailed her, she would reply, sometimes within the hour, to say that things were going positively in her life and that her counsellor thought she was making great progress. I was absolutely delighted for her. "Making music and looking forward is important," she said. "Lots of love. Dolores x".

"I have to stay positive and healthy," she said cheerily, adding that she was going to go for a swim in Limerick. "Keeping up the exercise is important.

"Keep in touch love. Much love! Dolores." She said that she would pass on my love to her mother.


The superstar who, as The Guardian put it, spent most of her adult life seeking a balance between depression and anorexia, was found dead at the Hilton hotel in Park Lane, London, last Monday morning. She was 46. Less than three decades earlier, her life changed when at the age of 18, she got a job with a Limerick group called The Cranberry Saw Us. She sang a version of a song she had written, a plaintive piece de resistance called Linger. The song, released in 1993 with the renamed Cranberries, became a giant hit globally, remaining in the Billboard Hot 100 in America for 24 weeks.


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There was no one quite like her. Nor will there be again. One of her earliest memories was being about five at school in Limerick when the headmistress took her out of the class and up into the sixth class where the 12-year-old girls were. She sat Dolores up on the teacher's desk and told her to sing for them. The five-year-old loved it - singing was something she had "that could win people over". That much is true of Dolores, a bona fide genius who could stand on a stage and win over any crowd, anywhere in the world. Lady Diana attended one of Dolores's concerts in September 1995, in Modena, Italy. She was in tears by the end of Dolores's heart-rending performance of Ave Maria with Pavarotti. Diana later explained to Dolores that the reason she cried earlier at her performance was because her mother Frances loved Ave Maria.

Like Lady Di, Lady Dolores died before her time, Like Lady Di, Lady Dolores's sorrows weren't a secret from the world, her troubles known to her millions of fans.

Dolores O'Riordan's wounds weren't visible on her elfin-like body but they were deeper and more painful than anything that bleeds. Mental pain - the constant rattle in the brain - is harder to bear than physical pain. Dolores knew that better than most, after all she had been through in her life. You didn't need to be Freud to see that her heart possessed more scar tissue than positive life experience. Elizabeth Wurtzel wrote in Prozac Nation that "a human being can survive almost anything as long as she sees the end in sight. But depression is so insidious, and it compounds daily, that it is impossible to ever see the end".

In amongst the loneliness, and the moments of depression that maybe compounded daily, I would like to think that Dolores O'Riordan always believed that there was lots of hope for her (she had great support from her mother Eileen and her brother PJ) and that the future was never less than bright. Hence one of the last emails she sent to me, saying: "I'm happy in Limerick now."

Born on September 6, 1971, Dolores Mary Eileen O'Riordan was the youngest of seven children. From the age of eight, Dolores endured years of rape and sexual molestation by a person known to her family in the Limerick area. It is hard to even begin to fathom the effect, both emotional and psychological, this would have had on her. When people toss out phrases like "Dolores was dealing with her demons", they should try to understand the hellish reality of what she actually went through as a young child: from the age of eight to 12, she was raped.

"For four years, when I was a little girl, I was sexually abused. I was only a kid," Dolores told me in the Sunday Independent's LIFE magazine in October 2013 at her then home with her husband Don Burton and their children in Abington, Malahide.

How could Dolores ever be normal again after those experiences as a child, her innocence robbed from her in the most evil way? The dirty secret the child-Dolores buried inside her for most of her adult life. It came out in nervous breakdowns, in depression, in suicidal thoughts (there was an attempt to take her life in 2013), in panic attacks, in mania, in anorexia.

In Rome at Christmas 2013, (she was in the Eternal City to sing at the Vatican for the Pope and took me with her) Dolores told me she had Googled anorexia and "studied" the condition. She found out it was a common pathology that develops later on in life. "So I was putting on this charade, this perfect face. I had anorexia, then depression, a breakdown."

I told her that anorexia was a form of suicide: you want to make yourself disappear.

"I knew why," she said in reply. "I knew why I hated myself. I knew why I loathed myself. I knew why I wanted to make myself disappear. It was something that I noticed manifested itself in my behaviour and the pathologies I began to develop in my early adult life, such as my eating disorder, depression and eventually the breakdowns. I think I am getting stronger for sure. But I'll always be a bit of a train wreck. Nobody's perfect. Those people who pretend they are perfect aren't perfect."

Three months prior to that, in the summer of 2013, she had told me in an interview with the Sunday Independent's Living magazine: "I tried to overdose last year. I suppose I am meant to stay here for the kids. It is just about acknowledgement for me now - not revenge. I'm not that type but it will free me to go into group therapy as I go on with my life and I can be a better and stronger mother."

Her father Terence had a bad bike accident in 1968, three years before Dolores was born, "which left him invalided with permanent brain damage", and he "was never the same again". He died in November 25, 2011, at home in Ballybricken, Co Limerick, after having been ill with cancer for seven years. Dolores knew that she might see the man who abused her at the funeral in Limerick. "I had nightmares for a year before my father's death about meeting him," she said, referring to the man who raped her. At the funeral, he "came over and cried and said: 'Sorry'."

"My father would have killed him [the abuser] had my poor father not been 'retarded'," she told me.

You could argue that when her marriage to six-foot-plus Don Burton - whom she married in virtually her knickers in Holy Cross Abbey outside Tipperary in 1994 - ended in mid-2014 after over 20 years, Dolores lost her protector against the world; and that Dolores's life unravelled out of control from there on. (I always liked Don. I always thought he was great, even essential, for Dolores. She needed him as much as a father figure as a husband in her life.) After the separation, the children lived with Don in Canada while Dolores bounced around the world, seeking sanctuary but sadly never truly finding it.

In November, 2014, she was arrested on an Aer Lingus plane at Shannon Airport after a troubling incident on flight EI-110.

Ten days after the incident, I got a phone call from Dolores to meet her at a house she was staying in on the Adare Manor estate. It was the worst I had ever seen her. She was clearly ill, clearly in need of urgent help. She was distressed and disorientated. She and I recorded a video of our interview. Her speech was so rambling and her eyes so full of mania that we decided not to use it.

When I suggested to Dolores that dreadful day in Adare that she should go to see someone, she replied, irritated: "Sure, I am a counsellor. Aren't I counselling the world? Aren't I after healing billions of people around the world? I talk to myself. I talk to myself in the mirror."

When I asked her what she said to herself, she answered: "That it is not your fault. And I love you. Be nice to yourself. And slow down. Because I am not going to live that long. I'm 43. If I see 50, I'll be happy," said Dolores, who was 46 when she died last Monday. "I mean that. People look at you and see a product. They don't see a soul, but an empty hole."

I was hugely concerned about her mental health. I also genuinely feared for her life.

A month later, two weeks before Christmas, I got another phone call from Dolores, asking this time to come and visit her in hospital. It was a typically surreal day. I visited her with two members of her new band, Jetlag NYC - bassist Andy Rourke (formerly of the Smiths) and DJ Ole Koretsky, with whom she had developed a romantic relationship. She played her guitar on the bed and showed me a picture she had painted. We then got a taxi to my house where we put REM on the CD player and had a bit of a bop with Ole. We all went to dinner in Locks in Portobello until midnight before Dolores went back to hospital.

I gave her a Christmas present of a book of John Lennon's drawings. I wrote in it: ''Merry Xmas Dollie, the war is over.''

Dollie's internal war was just beginning, it transpired. I knew she couldn't go on like she was. It was shocking and sad in the extreme to see her go downhill like this - even more shocking now that she seemed to be turning her life around finally - because, once upon a time, Dolores O'Riordan, despite her troubles, was one of the coolest, the wittiest, the warmest girls on terra firma...

Cut to Milan, 2003:

The Dr Martens-shod superstar from Limerick is in the sanctuary of her own dressing room - a world of scented candles, sumptuous cushions and coming colours. It is in here that Dolores disappears.

Before a show, she has a routine of reiki, massage and yoga. However, beneath all that Eastern calm, Dolores is desperately missing her two children. She's chartering a private jet to be home for her son Taylor's birthday on Saturday. Thirty thousand euro. Worth every cent. Giant balloons are being inflated and clowns hired. "He'll never be five again. I don't care about the money," she says. "I'm a mother more than I'm a rock star." She adds that she wants to try acting next year. Guitarist Noel Hogan says he was running the London Marathon in April.

"And I..." begins his brother, Cranberries bassist Mike, "...I'm going to have another sex change next year."

"I can just imagine you in a wig and women's underwear!" says drummer Fergal Lawler.

Dolores doesn't have to imagine. She can recall the early days of the Cranberries when the Hogan brothers would break into her room, liberally applying her make-up before helping themselves to their singer's undergarments.

Like two Gaelic Danny La Rues, Dolores recalls, Noel and Mike would then appear on the tour bus imitating the two girls, young Dolores and her good friend Brefni.

"They used to bust my bras and knickers all the time!" Dolores says.

Dolores remembers the early days of the Cranberries when she was dating ("nothing serious") Liam O Maonlai of the Hothouse Flowers, and the times the unknown Limerick quartet played the support slots to the then hugely popular Dublin band. Starving, the male members of the Cranberries would pester Dolores into getting food from her boyfriend's band's dressing room. "The Hothouse Flowers have very nice cheese," Mike, Noel, and Fergal would say. "Get us some!"

"Leave me alone!" she would reply. "I'm not scoring cheese off my boyfriend for you!"

"We were the bummer opening act," Fergal remembers. "We had nothing. No food. No drink. No prospects. And no cheese!"

Cut to Howth, 2007:

High up on the hill of Howth, in a sprawling mansion fit for an iconic rock star, Dolores tosses the salad while husband Don watches over the steaks and jumbo prawns on the grill in the Edenic splendour of their garden.

Her mother Eileen has two-year-old Dakota in her arms. Dakoka's big sister, six-year-old Molly, is watching Peppa Pig on the television. Dolores brings me into one of the big bedrooms where 10-year-old Taylor is playing Star Wars on his computer. She puts on the Darth Vader mask and walks around the room, pretending to be the former Jedi Knight who turned to the dark side.

Later that night, Dolores takes me into her and Don's bedroom, where Molly is tucked up in bed, refusing to go to the dark side. She wants the light left on. Dakota has long since gone to her bed, after an exhausting day in the garden.

Coming in from the barbecue, Don, 10 years Dolores's senior, brings the surf 'n' turf into the dining room, while his wife dutifully pours the wine. "When you're famous so young, become a millionaire overnight, people think you're going to crash and burn and be such a mess. I have my kids and Don," she says, pouring yet more red, red wine. "Before, if the gig didn't go too well, I'd be depressed; and if the press wrote something critical of me, I'd be depressed. You lose all sense of yourself if you take yourself that seriously. I'm completely calm now. I meditate a lot and I have my family."

Back during her low of 1995-96, when she was suffering from "serious depression", Dolores had "out-of-control anxiety attacks. I wasn't sleeping. I wasn't eating properly".

Dolores ate like a horse that night. She couldn't get the prawns into her mouth quick enough.

In April, 2014, Dolores and the true rock in her life, her mother Eileen, took me for lunch at the Bake House Bistro in Bruff, Co Limerick.

"They just saw me as a commodity, as a cash cow," Dolores said of her experiences in the music industry, which made her extraordinarily wealthy, but sucked the blood out of her, like a particularly ferocious vampire. "I was very, very lonely."

Eileen added: "I remember my own mother - who was 92 when she died in 1997 - saying to Dolores one morning: 'You'd have been better off if you'd kept your little job in Cassidy's in Limerick'."

"I worked there part-time when I was in fifth and sixth year," remembered the multi-millionaire singer. Courtesy of her group, the Cranberries, selling over 40 million records worldwide, Dolores had plenty of money - not that the wealth mattered. "Because," as Sylvia Plath wrote in The Bell Jar of depression, "whenever I sat - on the beach or at a street cafe in Paris - I would be sitting under the same glass bell jar, stewing in my own sour air".

Again, it wasn't always thus for young O'Riordan.

The path to fame is not always an easy one. Those whom the gods wish to destroy are granted fame and fortune at a dangerously early age, they say. And the Cranberries were but babies. They survived where others before them had perished.

"When you become famous very young - when you become a millionaire almost overnight - people expect you to be screwed up," Dolores told me in Milan 15 years ago. "So it makes you more determined to keep your life together. It makes you more determined to make the simple things in life right."

Like?

"Like a good marriage. Having children," she answered. "Being a good parent. Keep your marriage together. Staying loyal, and seeing the big picture."

Later that night, while Dolores held 20,000 Italians in thrall for two hours, her devoted husband Don took me onto the side of the stage where he gushed with the praise of the truly in love: "That's my wife! And she's the greatest singer in the world!"

I would like to think I did my best as a friend to protect her in life.

And so I hope in death this tribute will show the world the real person Dolores O'Riordan was - and more than that, how Dolores truly felt she was getting to a place of happiness and peace before her untimely passing.

Hence, to repeat, one of the last emails she sent me said: "I'm happy in Limerick now."

Whatever about her beloved Limerick, the divine Dolores is at peace now in heaven.

She will linger, eternally.

[Serena]

Funeral parte 1

Parte 2

[Serena]

In the week since her death, the people of Limerick got plenty of time to celebrate the life and mourn the passing of Dolores O’Riordan, their international rock star.

Thousands queued in inclement weather to pay their respects when she lay in public repose on two successive days. Traffic management plans were put in place. Books of condolences were filled and replaced by the council. The Taoiseach signed one of them. The President visited her family and tendered his sympathies.

Today, that public phase ended.

What happened next was not so much a funeral as an enfolding, with the small rural community of Ballybricken – where Dolores felt most at home and the place to which she always returned – coming together to sadly reclaim and bury of one of their own. She may have been globally famous, but to them, she was down to earth Dolores – Eileen’s daughter, one of the O’Riordans.

It was from this East Limerick townland that the schoolgirl singer determined she would, one day, conquer the world with her voice and her music. Lots of young girls have that same dream. Dolores O’Riordan, a force of nature, achieved it.

Time and opportunity
Her sudden death at the young age of 46 shocked the legions of Cranberries fans everywhere, but it hit particularly hard in Limerick. The O’Riordan family recognised this and generously allowed local people the time and opportunity to pay their tributes to the woman who always remained true to her county roots, despite her fame and fortune.

So when the time came for her funeral today, the many who turned out in her honour on Sunday and Monday stayed away from the tiny parish church of Saint Ailbe, where Dolores once played the organ and sang in the choir.

They had paid their respects.

The funeral of this rock star was as far away from rock and roll as you can get
So there was no big crowd on the bend in the road where the church sits under the shelter of Grady’s Hill, not far from the house where Dolores was born. Nor was there a celebrity parade through the churchyard gates. There may have been satellite news vans parked nearby, journalists scanning the Mass-goers and tiered rows of photographers on aluminium stepladders packed behind the low stone wall opposite, but there would be no big send-off to satisfy the national and international media.

Just like her mother, Dolores O’Riordan had a strong faith. Her funeral Mass, which was very traditional, reflected this. Screen out the cameras, the microphones and the notebooks and what was left was an ordinary, reflective and respectful Irish goodbye.

The funeral of this rock star was as far away from rock and roll as you can get.

The local community closed protectively around the family. Lads from the Ballybricken/Bohermore GAA club provided stewarding along the roads. Local houses opened their driveways so people could park. Farmers opened fields in case there was an overflow.

There are only 200 seats in the old church. It is very simply decorated: wooden beams in the vaulted roof and a small alter in front of a crucifix, with a statue of the Sacred Heart on one side and the Blessed Virgin on the other.

There were flowers, white flowers, everywhere. They spelled out the name “Dolores” beside her coffin. Wreaths of white roses and carnations were on the deep window sills, a white candle set in each one, the flames flickering through the stained glass.

There was a frisson among the photographers when Ali Hewson, wife of U2’s Bono, arrived. The band is in America and she was representing them.

President Higgins was represented by his Aide-de-Camp Louise Conlon and Taoiseach Leo Varadkar by his ADC, Caroline Burke.

It was lovely, lovely, wasn’t it really?' said one woman to her friend. 'It was'
The cameras went into overdrive again when the family arrived – Dolores’s mother Eileen; her children – Taylor (20), Molly (16) and Dakota (12), stepson Donny (26) and Don Burton, their father. Her sister, Angela and brothers Terence, Brendan, Donal, Joseph and PJ and their children. And once more when her bandmates entered the church, and when Olé Koretsky, Dolores’s boyfriend, who is in the band D.A.R.K., hurried inside.

Full to capacity
There was silence for a little while as the congregation settled, the church full to capacity with the requisite couple of elderly men just about clinging to the outside edge of the porch with their elbows.

Then music began, relayed outside on a public address system.

It’s Dolores. The unmistakable voice of Dolores. Ave Maria rings out over the winter-bare trees and surrounding pasture. It’s haunting and it’s beautiful. And then Luciano Pavarotti, and his tenor tones floating across to Grady’s Hill.

The two stars sang the hymn together at a charity concert in 1995. Princess Diana was in the audience and she said it brought tears to her eyes.

And so it did again today. Not in Modena, Italy, but in Ballybricken, Limerick.

Canon Liam McNamara, an old family friend, was chief celebrant of the Mass, with Father James Walton PP, Ballybricken & Bohermore; Archbishop Kieran O’Reilly, Archbishop of Cashel & Emly, and Archbishop Emeritus Dermot Clifford concelebrating.

Dolores, said Canon McNamara, had a voice of gold. She had a heart of gold too. He told how it was “impossible” to say how many people Dolores “rescued from darkness and sadness in their lives”.

Now, he said, she is singing in the heavenly choirs.

Personal homily
It was a warm and personal homily. During the communion reflection, the voice of a young Dolores O’Riordan filled the church again. This time, it was Panis Angelicus, beautifully performed. Who wouldn’t be moved?

There was no eulogy before the end. The service said all that needed to be said and all that needed to be done.

As the coffin was brought from the church, a familiar chorus started quietly and grew in intensity. When You Are Gone, one of the band’s best-known songs and a poignant reminder of Dolores’s unique vocal talent, played her out as the congregation applauded.

Four pipers from the Limerick Pipe Band, two of them her nephews, played as the coffin was carried to the hearse, the singer’s ex-husband Don and his son Donny among the bearers.

There was a whirring sound in the distance, like agricultural machinery in one of the fields. But it wasn’t. It was a drone, photographing the scene.

Dolores O’Riordan was buried in nearby Caherelly cemetery, next to her father Terence.

People stood around talking afterwards. Just like any ordinary funeral.

“It was lovely, lovely, wasn’t it really?” said one woman to her friend.

“It was. Really lovely.”

[Serena]

A few words from Noel, Mike & Ferg.

Firstly we would like to thank everyone for their support and kind words over the past few weeks. As you can imagine this has been a very sad and difficult time, not only for us, but also for Dolores' family. Reading though the messages you all sent has been amazing. To see how much of a positive impact Dolores had on people's lives is so lovely and gives some comfort at this very difficult time.

A lot of people have been asking what does the future hold for the band?

We have been discussing this over the past few days.

Over the past few months, the writing process for a new Cranberries album had begun with a lot of new songs already quite well developed. Dolores had already recorded vocals on these tracks so we have decided to finish them as it is what she would have wanted. We don’t know how many tracks will make the final album right now but it was Dolores' wish that we complete the recording of the album and release it so we going to do just that in the coming months.

As well as finishing the new album there are a few more Cranberries projects that were already underway. We will look at each as time permits.

Again, thank you all for your support. We will try our best to keep you all up to date on things as they unfold.

The Cranberries

[Serena]

AS she prepares to attend her daughter’s Month’s Mind Mass this weekend, Eileen O’Riordan has spoken of how she feels the presence of her daughter Dolores with her all the time, helping her in her time of grief.

“I talk to her all time. I feel she is there all the time - helping me. I give out to her sometimes too,” said Eileen this Wednesday of her beloved daughter, the iconic rockstar Dolores O’Riordan.

Speaking exclusively to the Leader from her Ballybricken home, Eileen told of how Dolores’ three children Taylor, 20, Molly, 17, and 12-year-old Dakota are slowly coming to terms with the death of their doting mother, having returned to Canada where they live.

“The girls are doing OK but Taylor is understandably finding it very hard. They are moving house - too many memories,” she explained.

Three weeks after the funeral of The Cranberries frontwoman, flowers, sent by fans from across the world through the floral delivery network Interflora, continue to be delivered to the grave of the 46-year-old singer who died suddenly on January 15 in her London hotel room.

Eileen continues her daily routine of going to Mass every day in the small parish church of St Ailbe’s in Ballybricken but, now, sadly, she also makes the lonely journey to Dolores’ graveside at Caherelly Cemetery where Eileen’s husband Terence was laid to rest in 2011.
 
“I go up quite often. I have to go up this evening now and clean it for the weekend because the frost got all the flowers. There are flowers still coming - the fans abroad are sending flowers by Interflora. Some of them are being delivered to the grave.”

In an acknowledgment published on page two, the O’Riordan family have expressed their “heartfelt thanks for the many expressions of sympathies and kindness following our loss at this sad time.

“A sincere thanks to all who attended her funeral and offered their support, kindness and sympathy over the past month.”

“We are getting hundreds of letters - I didn’t look at them yet,” said Eileen, her voice cracking.

“I have a shoebox of them here. They are still coming in the post from all over the world. A letter came from Boston simply saying, Eileen O’Riordan, Limerick. There was no mention of Ireland or anything just Limerick.”

The family, she said, are coping “good enough” as they are being kept busy with the huge amount of support they are getting from the close-knit local community as well as the wider global fanbase Dolores had attracted over the years.

“There is an awful lot happening still with the neighbours calling and letters coming,” Eileen explained.

Over the past two decades Eileen has been a regular visitor to Canada to see her grandchildren.

“They are like my own children,” she pointed out. “Both girls are like Dolores and sing. Dolores was recording with Taylor two weeks before she died - he has a great voice. They had the studio and the whole lot ready but poor Taylor got a very bad sore throat problem and he couldn’t do it. It’s a pity - I suppose it wasn’t meant to be. They had to get their dog put down last Friday which has added to their pain.”

With many column inches being devoted to Dolores funeral  in local, national and global media - the Leader’s Norma Prendiville described how it was all done simply, “with great dignity and with no fancy trappings”, Eileen this week praised the media for the respect they showed her family at the funeral.

“Going to concerts with Dolores you would often have cameras in your face. I was probably expecting something like that but everyone was very good.

“I was supposed to wait around and meet everyone but when I saw the children upset I just got them into the car - they would always come first.”

Dolores is predeceased by her father Terence and is very deeply regretted by her mother Eileen, children Taylor, Molly and Dakota, their father Don, brothers Terence, Brendan, Donal, Joseph and PJ, and sister Angela, brother-in-law, sisters-in-law, nieces, nephews, all other relatives and a large circle of friends. Dolores’ Month’s Mind Mass will be offered this Saturday in Ballybricken church at 7.30pm with refreshments afterwards in Kirby’s.

Dolores’ family offers thanks for support in past month

We the family of the late Dolores O’Riordan R.I.P. would like to express our sincere and heartfelt thanks for the many expressions of sympathies and kindness following our loss at this sad time. A sincere thanks to all who attended her funeral and offered their support, kindness and sympathy over the past month.

To all who attended Limerick City Hall and St. Joseph’s Church to sign the Books of Condolences and pay their respects.

To the many thousands of sympathisers and fans who sent mass cards, flowers and letters of sympathy.

To the Cranberries, Noel, Mike, Fergal, their families, the band’s crew, Nollaig, and representatives from the Irish Music Industry.

Special thanks to President Michael D. Higgins, his Aide-de-Camp Louise Conlon and Aide-de-Camp to AnTaoiseach Caroline Burke. Most Rev. Kieran O’Reilly Archbishop of Cashel &Emly. Archbishop Emeritus Dermot Clifford. Most Rev. Brendan Leahy Bishop of Limerick, Canon Liam MacNamara, Chief Celebrant of the Funeral Mass. Fr. James Walton, P.P. Ballybricken Bohermore, Reverend Fr. Oliver Plunkett and all at St.Joseph’s Church and to all the other priests who attended and offered consoling support.

Sincere thanks to the members of the Limerick Pipe Band and the Irish Chamber Orchestra, Mayor of Limerick, local representatives, Limerick City & County Council and the Gardai. A special word of thanks to Limerick’s Live 95fm for broadcasting the Mass and to all other media sources for their respectful coverage.

A special word of thanks to Cross’s Funeral Directors for their most compassionate and professional manner of handling of arrangements. Also to those who helped prepare Dolores’ final resting place.

To Ballybricken Bohermore G.A.A. Club and local parishioners who helped with Church preparations, to Anne for her lovely flowers, Caherelly N.S. and all who helped with parking, stewarding, roads and traffic management. Also to the residents of Ballyneety Village for their kind gestures.

As it would be impossible to thank everyone individually we would like to extend our heartfelt gratitude to our extended families and all our kind neighbours and friends for their continuing support and kindness.

Mass will be offered for all your intentions.

Dolores’ Month’s Mind Mass will be offered this Saturday 24th February 2018 in St. Ailbe’s Church, Ballybricken at 7.30pm.

[Serena]

This month marks the 25th anniversary of the release of our debut album “Everybody Else is doing it so why can’t we”. In recent weeks we have had a number of media enquiries asking if we were planning anything to commemorate this milestone.

We can confirm that since last summer the band had been working with Universal Music on the creation of a very special 25th anniversary edition of the album, a newly re mastered version with previously unreleased material of ours as well as other bonus material from the era of our debut album. We had planned to release this special edition this month to coincide with the 25th anniversary. However, given Dolores’ passing in January we put the entire project on hold.

In recent weeks we revisited this. After much consideration we have decided to finish what we started. We thought about it and decided that as this is something that we started as a band, with Dolores, we should push ahead and finish it. So that’s the plan, to finish the project and get the special 25th anniversary edition album out later this year.

We will also be completing the recording of a new studio album as previously announced, which we also started last year and for which Dolores had already recorded the vocals. All going well we hope to have this new album finished and out early next year.

We will keep you all up to date as things progress.
Noel, Mike and Ferg

[Serena]

Uncertain

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IL-unYfTglE

[Serena]

Entrevista de 1993!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9kemOTMVtIU

[Serena]

Tras presentar Money + Love, un doble videoclip en forma de película, Arcade Fire sigue promocionando su último disco, Everything Now, con la gira Infinite Content Tour.

Uno de los conciertos más especiales ha sido en Dublín, donde Win Butler y el resto de componentes de la banda rindieron un emotivo homenaje a Dolores O'Riordan, cantante de The Cranberries fallecida en el mes de enero.

En el país natal de la artista, Irlanda, Arcade Fire interpretó el clásico Linger, del primer álbum del grupo de O'Riordan, Everybody Else Is Doing It So Why Not Can We?. Sin duda, tal y como puede verse en las imágenes que han compartido los asistentes, el momento fue emocionante y muy aplaudido.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEiyjBsaFQ8