Dolores O’Riordan interview, Ireland 1999

Dolores O’Riordan of The Cranberries talks about her childhood, hard work, and achieving international success and recognition.

It has not been all plain sailing for the twenty seven year old from Limerick who is listed as the fifth richest woman in Ireland.

Millionaire, Rock Star, Wife and Mother

The Cranberries are currently half way through a European tour and Dolores O’Riordan flew in from Berlin especially to appear on The Late Late Show. The band had taken a break following their early success so they are delighted that the fans are still there and are turning out in their thousands for the new live shows.

Dolores O’Riordan describes a happy childhood growing up in Limerick with five brothers and one sister. As a teenager the youngest of seven children she was a bit of a rebel.

"I guess I was a bit of a tomboy."

At school, she describes herself as a bit of a “class clown”. Music was part of her life from a young age. She started writing songs and played the church organ from the age of twelve or thirteen. Joining The Cranberries while still at school Dolores’s mother was quite worried at first but soon came around to the idea.

Success for the band did not come overnight and Dolores describes their first gig in Dublin playing to four people who were more interested in their pints than the music. The band often played two gigs a day in small bars for years before breaking America with their debut album ‘Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Can’t We?’ which went on to sell six or seven million copies. Success in Europe and the rest of the world would follow.

"The English press really slated it and it was really quite a nice thing when we went to America and it was so big there."

This episode of The Late Late Show was broadcast on 12 November 1999. The presenter is Pat Kenny.