Dolores O'Riordan speaks to the Limerick Leader - confirms Cranberries to reform

Alan Owens
A RELAXED Dolores O’Riordan has given a rare interview in advance of the release of her second solo album and has confirmed that the Cranberries are to get back together in the near future.
Speaking exclusively to the Limerick Leader in advance of the release of her album, No Baggage, later in the summer, O’Riordan revealed that she got together wit her former band members as recently as last week.
“It was great, I saw them last week when I was down in Limerick, we all got together with all of our kids and had a nice time hanging out,” said a happy sounding O’Riordan.
In fact, the band, who sold more than 40 million albums worldwide before going on ‘hiatus’ in 2003, loosely discussed plans to reform earlier this year, but Dolores has instead insisted that they will return to both the stage and the recording studio in the near future.
“Oh yeah, I would see it on the cards in the future,” she said.
“With this (solo album) being out I will probably do a tour and in the next year or two it would be a really nice thing to do. I think creatively we (the Cranberries) would have to write some amazing music and go where we haven't gone before and make an album that is totally different to what we have done before.”
Dolores, who divides her time between Dublin and Ontario, where she lives with her husband Don Burton and their three children (aged 3 to 12) and a 17-year old son from Burton’s previous relationship, said that living ‘in the forest’ in Canada and bringing up a family has made her much more relaxed.
“I am very relaxed really and I think it was essential to step out of the equation of being in the Cranberries and take my four years in the forest being a full time mom and getting away from it all,” she explained.
“For so long there was so much pressure, when I was young I felt like there was too much focus on me, for any kid, when you are 20 years old and that many people are looking at you, of course you are going to screw up, everything is under a microscope, everything is magnified, every mistake that you make is publicised.
“But when you move away and get away from it all and start to have kids - suddenly it is not all about me, it is about life and you have this real love and this reality that perhaps is something that I craved for so long.”
The famous singer still feels a deep affinity to her home-town.
“Oh yeah, my parents being there is my biggest connection, when I go back it is like as if time hasn't elapsed. I go off walking and I fall right back into some of my childhood moments, which is nice. It is where the journey began.”
No Baggage is set for release on August 21 and Dolores has revealed she hopes to play in Limerick when she goes on tour in Erurope later in the year.
A full interview with Dolores O’Riordan will appear in the Limerick Leader closer to the release of her album.