Dolores Mary Eileen O'Riordan (/oʊˈrɪərdən/ oh-REER-dən; 6 September 1971 – 15 January 2018) was an Irish musician who achieved international fame as the lead vocalist of the rock band the Cranberries.

[6] She 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.

[22][32] Former principal Anne Mordan said in Nova about O'Riordan that she was a "delightful, unsophisticated, sensitive student, who enjoyed her time with us"; she described her as "a bright, kind, good-humoured girl, who loved her family, her friends, and had an easy relationship with all her teachers, both lay and FCJ sisters.

[60] The album produced the songs "Ode to My Family", "I Can't Be with You", "Ridiculous Thoughts" and the group's biggest international hit, "Zombie", which topped singles charts in several countries.

[9][64][65] Billboard's William Goodman described 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".

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.

[81][86][87] In June 2003, O'Riordan met AC/DC singer Brian Johnson when the Cranberries were playing concerts with AC/DC and the Rolling Stones on the latest leg of their Licks World Tour, and they considered the idea of working together.

[88][89] In mid-July 2003, the two friends started collaborating on material for a project that should have been the rock opera version of Helen Of Troy, based on the Greek mythology—with "rousing anthems, tender ballads and minimal dialogue".

[102][103] In 2004, 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.

[98][108] On 3 December 2005, O'Riordan made her third appearance at the Vatican's annual Christmas concert, where she performed "War Is Over", "Linger" and "Adeste Fideles" in duet with Italian tenor Gian Luca Terranova.

[109][110] She 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.

[61] "Ordinary Day" was its first single, released in late April, and was produced by BRIT Awards winner, Martin "Youth" Glover, whose previous credits included the Verve, Embrace, Primal Scream, U2 and Paul McCartney.

[136][146][147] Following the statement, O'Riordan reported that she thought about how much she missed the band before making the decision to tour again, saying of Lawler and the two Hogan brothers that "they're a big part of my heart and soul".

[148] In October 2009, 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.

[177] During a New Year's Eve party under the Spire of St Mary's Cathedral, she performed with a quartet from the Irish Chamber Orchestra, playing "Linger", "Zombie" and one solo, "The Journey".

[179] In April 2014, disillusioned by her experiences in the music industry, O'Riordan told Barry Egan that the record business made her "extraordinarily wealthy, but sucked the blood out of her, like a particularly ferocious vampire".

[181][182] In late April 2017, celebrating the 25th anniversary of the band, the Cranberries released a new studio album Something Else, featuring acoustic versions of their greatest hits, and backed by the Irish Chamber Orchestra.

The Cranberries published on social media the cancellation of the sold-out tour in Europe and North America, stating that O'Riordan's back problem was in the mid- to upper area of her spine and diaphragmatic movements associated with breathing and singing exacerbated the pain.

[236] 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".

[18] The voice recording protocol had evolved over the years, 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.

[267] They lived in their first home for a year while they planned their own ultra-modern house,[267] including a recording studio and guest apartment, set on a 16-acre (6.5-hectare) plot in Dunquin, west County Kerry, on the Dingle Peninsula, but they spent little time there and later sold the property.

[171][280] In October 2013, 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".

[285] Her family described Dolores as "strong-minded and determined";[292] however, discussing her mental instability and her volatile vulnerability in a 2014 interview with the Belfast Telegraph, O'Riordan explained that she "carried quite a burden of pain and torment from her past".

The day after her death, the tabloid newspaper Santa Monica Observer spread a false story that fentanyl had been found in the room indicating that London authorities suspected suicide and a "deliberate overdose.

In a tribute normally reserved for heads of State, thousands streamed past her open coffin, in a four-hour public reposing inside St Joseph's Church in the city.

[326] Bono, Sinéad 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.

[327] Among those honouring O'Riordan were the Cranberries,[328] Olé Koretsky,[329] Andy Rourke (former bassist of the Smiths),[329] Stephen Street,[330] U2,[331] Duran Duran,[332] Julian Lennon,[333] Liz Phair,[334] James Corden,[332] Josh Groban,[332] Roger Bennett,[335] Hozier,[332] Foster the People,[332] Elijah Wood,[328] Chris Cornell's brother Peter,[336] Mark Lanegan,[332] Pearl Jam,[337] Bryan Adams,[328] Halsey,[338] Kodaline,[332] the The,[328] Michael Stipe and R.E.M.,[338] Dave Davies of the Kinks,[334] Adele,[331] Garbage,[337] Annie Lennox,[339] Cerys Matthews,[331] Lisa Stansfield,[331] Michelle Branch,[334] Dan Brodbeck,[340] Slash,[333] Graham Hopkins,[335] Benjamin Kowalewicz,[335] Vic Fuentes,[328] actors Luke Evans[328] and Francois Arnaud,[334] Questlove,[341] Kiesza,[332] Diplo,[332] Gao Xiaosong,[342] Colin Parry,[328] The Tim Parry Johnathan Ball Foundation for Peace,[343] Ali Hewson,[84] Adi Roche[84] and Chernobyl Children International.

[84] On 29 March 2018, Mayor Stephen Keary presented the book of condolences with over 16,000 signatures to O'Riordan's mother Eileen, brothers Donal, Terry and Joe, and other family members.

[370] She 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".

[183] According to Una Mullally of The New York Times, O'Riordan's native accent positioned the Cranberries as a "truly" Irish band, which maintained its cultural identity and integrity, whose "global success was instigated by how America embraced them", by their music videos in "heavy rotation", and "crucially, by American radio".