Cranberries singer Dolores O'Riordan dies suddenly at 46, Latest Music News - The New Paper
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Cranberries singer Dolores O'Riordan dies suddenly at 46

Irish singer-songwriter Dolores O'Riordan, frontwoman of rock band The Cranberries, died suddenly at the London Hilton hotel in London on Monday.

She was 46.

The single mother of three was in the British capital for a "short recording session", a statement from her publicist said.

Irish prime minister Leo Varadkar was among the first to pay tribute, calling O'Riordan "the voice of a generation".

"For anyone who grew up in Ireland in the 1990s, the Cranberries were an iconic band, who captured all of the angst that came with your teenager years," he said in a statement.

O'Riordan, from Friarstown in the Irish county of Limerick, will be buried in Ireland.

Father James Walton, a priest at her Ballybricken and Bohermore parish, told Britain's Press Association that her family is "very devastated and upset" and "waiting for more details to come from London about her death".

O'Riordan joined The Cranberries in 1990 and they went on to be one of the biggest Irish bands of the 1990s, selling more than 40 million records.

Their most popular hits included Zombie and Linger.

She married Mr Don Burton, former tour manager of Duran Duran, in 1994, but the couple, who had three children, divorced in 2014.

She hit the headlines that same year after pleading guilty to assaulting three police officers and a flight attendant while travelling from New York to Ireland, and was later diagnosed with bipolar disorder.

The band was forced to cancel 14 concerts last year because of "medical reasons associated with a back problem" that O'Riordan had.

They released their latest album, Something Else, last year. - AFP

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