The music world was shocked by the passing of The Cranberries' lead singer Dolores O'Riordan
on January 15th, 2018.
She was only 46 years old when her body was found in a London hotel.
You know her voice, you know her songs, so here's a look at what you might not know about
her and the legacy she left behind.
Country girl
Despite her fame and rock star status, O'Riordan
told the Telegraph in 2001 she was most at peace in rural Ireland.
She described her "cozy, loving childhood," her close relationship with her mother, and
her thoughts on the rock star life, saying...
"I don't want to be a part of the Hollywood scene, or the New York scene — I just want
to be a part of my family scene.
I don't want to get into a clique of people that I suddenly feel I have to have an identity
with.
I have a real identity with a beautiful family I really know and really love."
She talked about her piece of paradise, too: a house outside Limerick with a cottage for
her mother, complete with horses, a pot-bellied pig, a flock of chickens, her dogs, and the
peacocks the family raised.
Politics
While not nearly as openly political as fellow Irish singer-songwriter Sinéad O'Connor,
O'Riordan occasionally expressed her political opinions to the press.
In a 1995 interview, she told Rolling Stone she thought abortions were demeaning to women:
"I'm in no position to judge other women, you know?
But, I mean, 'Idiot — why didn't you not get pregnant?'
It's not good for women to go through the procedure.
…It belittles women."
In 2009, she allowed her music to be used in a movie called South Dakota: A Woman's
Right to Choose, an anti-abortion film that's part documentary and part feature, telling
the story of two pregnant teens and the decisions they made.
O'Riordan also moderated a post-screening panel for an audience of hundreds of teenage
girls.
When the Los Angeles Times covered the panel, they said O'Riordan stayed neutral while encouraging
the girls to speak up about how they felt without fear of being judged.
In 2014, O'Riordan was a mentor on The Voice of Ireland, and told the Independent before
the finale that she didn't have any chemistry with the show's other female mentor.
She believed there was one key difference between them:
"I'm a feminist, and she's not.
Someone who uses their sexuality to be heard or to be seen or get attention — I don't
think you need to do that.
I think women should be equal."
But O'Riordan didn't always consider herself a feminist.
In 2001, she told the Telegraph, "I think the feminists probably need some
serious man in their lives."
Facing her demons
In 2015, O'Riordan pleaded guilty to charges
filed following an incident that started on a flight from New York to Ireland and continued
at the airport.
O'Riordan was allegedly physically and verbally abusive with the flight crew, acting belligerent
and shouting "I'm an icon, I'm the Queen of Limerick!"
When police arrived at the airport, she reportedly headbutted one officer and spit at another.
O'Riordan's mother Eileen told the Limerick Leader it wasn't drugs or alcohol that triggered
her daughter's outburst, but stress from the end of her 20-year marriage, which she alluded
to in a 2013 interview: "You've been together, what, 18 years or something?
Married 18 years?"
"Yeah, married 18 this year, yeah, there's a bit of hope.
And we haven't really killed each other yet, only fight."
O'Riordan was placed in psychiatric care following the incident, and the judge ordered her to
apologize to the crew and the police in writing and donate 6,000 Euros to charity.
O'Riordan's friend Barry Egan wrote a piece for the Belfast Telegraph after the airport
drama that tried to explain why, failing marriage aside, she was in such a dark place.
Egan wrote that O'Riordan confessed to him in 2013 that she was sexually abused by a
man for four years when she was a little girl.
She kept the secret buried for a long time, but had to face it in 2011, when her father
lost his seven-year battle with cancer, and she came face-to-face with her abuser at his
funeral.
She said the man apologized for what he did to her.
O'Riordan says the abuse she suffered as a child had a major impact on her as an adult.
At the same time she struggled to come to terms with her newfound fame, she fought to
manage the depression that led her to thoughts of self-harm, anorexia, alcoholism, insomnia,
and panic attacks.
She also shared that in 2012, things got so bad she tried to overdose.
When that failed, she reassessed her life, citing her kids as a reason to live.
O'Riordan was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in 2015.
Believer
O'Riordan frequently talked about the values instilled in her during her childhood, which
the Telegraph called "old-fashioned, romantic, and Catholic."
O'Riordan herself told the Irish Independent she believes in God and an afterlife, adding:
"I believe in other dimensions.
When people die they go to another dimension and we can communicate with them."
She said part of her beliefs came from her experience saying goodbye to her father, and
added he regularly came to her in dreams, where she spoke with him.
Secure legacy
When she talked to the Telegraph in 2001 about
her legacy, she said it was one she was proud of.
"When I die, I'll have a massive catalog of beautiful songs behind me.
I'm proud I wrote Linger, I'm proud I wrote Dreams.
I love it when I hear people doing cover versions of my songs: I'm like, 'I wrote that!
My God!'
I'm so proud of myself."