Instep Desk

This past Monday, the body of Dolores O’Riordan, 46, the lead singer-songwriter of Irish music group The Cranberries, was found in a London hotel room. While the police continue to investigate the cause of death, her passing has sent shockwaves throughout the music world and beyond.

As the news of her passing became known, tributes from musicians have been pouring in. Fellow Irish rockers U2 remembered the singer by taking to their Instagram account, stating: "The band are floored but it’s of course her family we’re all thinking of right now. Out of the West came this storm of a voice - she had such strength of conviction yet she could speak to the fragility in all of us. Limerick’s ‘Bel canto’." Bono, The Edge, Adam and Larry."

The remaining members of The Cranberries also express their devastation upon learning of her death.

"We are devastated on the passing of our friend Dolores. She was an extraordinary talent and we feel very privileged to have been part of her life from 1989 when we started the Cranberries. The world has lost a true artist today."

After her death was announced, Irish president Michael D. Higgins issued the following statement: "It is with great sadness that I have learned of the death of Dolores O’Riordan, musician, singer and song writer. Dolores O’Riordan and The Cranberries had an immense influence on rock and pop music in Ireland and internationally. I recall with fondness the late Limerick TD Jim Kemmy’s introduction of her and The Cranberries to me, and the pride he and so many others took in their successes. To all those who follow and support Irish music, Irish musicians and the performing arts her death will be a big loss."

The music group, founded in 1989 originally included Niall Quinn as vocalist alongside guitarist Noel Hogan, bassist Mike Hogan, and drummer Fergal Lawler and was called The Cranberry Saw Us. But a year later Quinn left the group making room for Dolores O’Riordan, who auditioned by writing some lyrics and melodies to some demos. When hired, the band changed its name to The Cranberries. They rose to fame in the 1990s with their first single, ‘Dreams’ and were on their way. By the time 1999’s Bury The Hatchet landed, The Cranberries had grown into a group with worldwide following.

Producer Stephen Street, who worked with Dolores on nearly every Cranberries record, penned a heartfelt tribute to the singer that was published in Rolling Stone magazine.

"I first met Dolores when she was barely out of her teenage years at a show the Cranberries were playing at the Marquee club in London," he wrote. "Island Records had asked me to go along to see if I would be interested in working with them on recording their debut album.

Dolores was so nervous, she spent most of the gig singing sideways-on to the audience, unable to look the crowd in the eye. However, there was something special there that captivated me and I agreed to go into the studio with them to see what we could create.

The fruit of our labours was the album Everybody Else Is Doing it Why Can’t We? and the subsequent singles including ‘Dreams’ and ‘Linger’. Whilst making the record I could see Dolores and the boys in the band grow in confidence but nothing could prepare me for the difference I saw in her character 9 months after the release when the band had been gigging nonstop on the road in America and Europe."

He added: "Dolores gave so much of herself at the gigs and continued to do so over the next decade or so. Perhaps she could have tempered her behavior and been more measured but that wasn’t her way. She was a little firebrand that kept everybody on their toes and when she got it ‘right’ in the studio with her vocal performances, the session would come alight.

Now she is gone… She leaves behind a family and friends.

Not least three ‘special’ friends who were with her in the Cranberries. A band that truly worked so very hard to achieve their well deserved magnificent heights of success across the globe.

My thoughts are with her family and Noel, Mike and Fergal. We all benefited from knowing her and being in her presence.

RIP my Irish Songbird."

The time of The Cranberries, who gave us songs like ‘Promises’, ‘Animal Instinct’ and ‘Zombie’ as well as several memorable records is certainly over. But the rebellious Dolores will live on. As Sonia Saraiya notes in a Variety piece on the singer: "With O’Riordan’s passing it feels that some further essential quality of the ’90s has slipped out of our grasp -- a flawed era, but one that seemed much more united about global progress than our current one. Perhaps everything was broken, but wasn’t everyone kind of on the same page about what we were doing? Feeding the hungry, tending to the sick, giving heifers to the heifer-less? The bohemians were taking over, a la Rent, and with them they brought a healing doctrine of yoga and lattes. In the teens, or whatever this decade is, it feels like we know everything we’re supposed to know, but we deny the information the power to sink in. In 1994, O’Riordan was upset about the news; in 2018, 42 per cent of Republicans don’t believe the news.

But mostly, I feel it is my turn to be the O’Riordan I want to see in the world. It’s bizarre how much I miss what O’Riordan showed me -- which was that you could be sensitive, and aware, and pissed-off, and somehow that could still become a hit."

- With information from Variety