Hogan forms the Cranberries with his brother Mike and drummer Fergal Lawler in 1989. The group recruits Dolores O’Riordan as lead singer soon after forming. The band goes on to sell in excess of 40 million records worldwide. In total, Hogan has released eight albums with the Cranberries.
The Cranberries go on a six-year hiatus from 2003 to 2009. During this time Hogan turns his focus to his own music. He begins working with programmer Matt Vaughan, who had already done work on unreleased Cranberries songs and Dolores O’Riordan’s solo material. Mono Band is born with Hogan as the sole band member. With vocals being supplied by Richard Walters, Alexandra Hamnede, Kate Havnevik, and other guest artists, he works with Cranberries’ veteran producer Stephen Street to compile a mix of 12 tracks. Working on his side project at the same time, sees their resulting debut album, Mono Band, released on May 20, 2005. He and Mono Band vocalist Richard Walters go on to form Arkitekt. Arkitekt releases two EPs at that time in 2009, working on new material.
After O’Riordan’s untimely death on January 15, 2018, Hogan confirms disbandment of the Cranberries, which occurs after the release of the posthumous album In the End in 2019, saying, “The Cranberries without Dolores just isn’t The Cranberries… we won’t replace our friend and lead singer.”
Hogan’s work independent of the Cranberries has been released on his own label, Gohan Records, and is published through Fairwood Music (UK) Ltd for the world.
Hogan also produces bands on the local music scene in Limerick. On July 10, 2009, Gohan Records releases Tonelist in collaboration with Limerick Live 95FM‘s Green and Live show. It is a collection featuring musicians in the Limerick music scene.
In 2022, Hogan debuts The Puro, a new duo alongside Brazilian singer Mell Peck.
Hundreds of people gather at the rural church to say goodbye to a singer renowned for her distinctive voice. The Cranberries enjoyed huge success in the 1990s with tracks including “Zombie” and “Linger.” O’Riordan, who was also a member of alternative rock group D.A.R.K., had been working on a new studio album with The Cranberries in the months before her death. Her boyfriend and fellow D.A.R.K. band member Olé Koretsky is among the mourners. Her three children – Taylor, Molly and Dakota – join the singer’s mother Eileen, her sister Angela and brothers Terence, Brendan, Donal, Joseph and PJ in the small parish church. Her former husband Don Burton is also in attendance.
At the outset of the mass, symbols associated with O’Riordan’s life are brought to the altar. Her niece Eileen and a long-time friend bring forward a guitar and a platinum disc award. A picture of Our Lady of Dolours, after whom Dolores is named, is placed at the altar, as is a book of poetry.
In his homily, Canon Liam McNamara recalls meeting the young O’Riordan in 1989 when she was singing and playing the keyboard in the church. “She did have a unique respect for everybody,” he said. “Coupled with that respect, her kind, loving and generous heart made her a source of great hope to the Church, during its stormy years. For that we sincerely thank her from our hearts.”
During Communion, O’Riordan’s version of the hymn “Panis Angelicus” is played in the church. Archbishop of Cashel and EmlyKieran O’Reilly says, “Since we heard of the sudden death of Dolores O’Riordan, many hearts in Ireland and around the world are heavy with sadness on hearing the news.”
“Indeed, the great outpouring of sympathy and love for Dolores which we have seen since her death is a witness and a tribute to her great musical talent and very special voice by her many fans and lovers of music. “Dolores put her God-given talents at the service of others.”
Archbishop O’Reilly hails O’Riordan’s voice as “unique, far reaching and distinctly Irish. Her gifts have resonated in the lives of many and will continue to do so as her music and her songs will continue to be played and listened to.”
At the close of the service, The Cranberries’ song “When You’re Gone” rings around the church as the singer’s coffin is carried to the adjacent Caherelly Cemetery for a private burial service. Mourners break into a spontaneous round of applause.
On Monday evening, tea light candles light the streets as family and close friends accompany O’Riordan’s remains to the church from Cross’s Funeral Home in Ballyneety. President of IrelandMichael D. Higgins pays his condolences to the singer’s family earlier in the day and signs a book of condolence. “It was very important to pay tribute to the contribution Dolores made,” says Higgins. “It is so moving, so profoundly sad, that somebody so young is taken from us. She was a star that shone bright from the very beginning,” he adds.
(From: “Voice of Dolores O’Riordan fills church at her funeral,” The Irish Times, January 23, 2018)
O’Riordan explains how she wrote the song in the Spring of 2001 after she had seen the children of Chernobyl. Having just given birth to her second child, the pictures of children born with so many illnesses moved her to tears, she said.
She says it is her hope that, as well as funds, the single will help raise awareness about the plight of the Chernobyl children. The band’s previous offering, Analyse, sold over 175,000 copies worldwide as of 2002.
Thanking the Cranberries, Roche says the song’s title is appropriate as the health problems caused by the Chernobyl nuclear disaster of April 26, 1986, are only beginning to emerge.
She says the effects are moving to the “next generation who are now witnessing soaring levels of infertility and genetic changes, especially among those who were less than six years of age when the accident happened.”
Founded in 1991, the Chernobyl Children Project International, now known as Chernobyl Children International, is an Irish charity that works to help the children who are living victims of the nuclear disaster. As of February 2002, it had sent €24 million in aid to the region.
(From “Cranberries single to benefit Chernobyl children”, The Irish Times, Thursday, February 7, 2002 | Pictured: (L to R) Ali Hewson, Adi Roche, and Dolores O’Riordan at the Clarence Hotel, February 7, 2002)
O’Riordan is the youngest of nine children, two of whom die in infancy. Her father, Terence Patrick “Terry” O’Riordan (1937–2011), is a farm labourer who is left unable to work due to brain damage caused by a motorbike accident in 1968. Her mother, Eileen, is a school caterer. She attends Laurel Hill Coláiste FCJ school in Limerick. She leaves school without any qualifications.
In 1989, brothers Mike and Noel Hogan form The Cranberry Saw Us with drummer Fergal Lawler and singer Niall Quinn, in Limerick. Less than a year later, Quinn leaves the band. The remaining band members then place an advertisement for a female singer. O’Riordan responds to the advertisement and auditions by writing lyrics and melodies to some existing demos. When she returns with a rough version of “Linger,” she is hired, and they record Nothing Left At All, a three-track EP released on tape by local record label Xeric Records, which sells 300 copies. The group changes their name to “The Cranberries.” The owner of Xeric Studios, Pearse Gilmore, becomes their manager and provides the group with studio time to complete another demo tape, which he produces. It features early versions of “Linger” and “Dreams,” which are sent to record companies throughout the United Kingdom (UK).
Are You Listening? is released in Ireland on May 4, 2007, in Europe on May 7, and in North America on May 15. In 2008, O’Riordan wins a European Border Breakers Award (EBBA) which is presented annually to recognize the success of ten emerging artists or groups who reach audiences outside their own countries with their first internationally released album in the past year. Her second album, No Baggage, featuring eleven tracks, is released in August 2009.
In January 2009, the University Philosophical Society at Trinity College, Dublin invites The Cranberries to reunite for a concert celebrating O’Riordan’s appointment as an honorary member of the Society, which leads the band members to consider reuniting for a tour and a recording session. On August 25, 2009, while promoting her solo album No Baggage in New York City on 101.9 RXP radio, O’Riordan announces the reunion of the Cranberries for a world tour. The tour begins in North America in mid-November, followed by South America in mid-January 2010 and Europe in March 2010. She remains in the band until her unexpected death.
She appears as a judge on RTÉ‘s The Voice of Ireland during the 2013–2014 season. In April 2014, O’Riordan joins and begins recording new material with the trio D.A.R.K.
On January 15, 2018, at the age of 46, while in London for a recording session, O’Riordan dies suddenly at the London Hilton on Park Lane hotel in Mayfair. The cause of death is not immediately made public. Police say it is not being treated as suspicious. The coroner’s office says the results of its inquiry would not be released until April 3 at the earliest. On April 3 the inquest is cancelled with no new date announced.
A three-day memorial in her hometown, with O’Riordan lying in repose, lasts from January 20-22 at St. Joseph’s church. On January 23, she is buried after a service at Saint Ailbe’s Roman Catholic Church, Ballybricken, County Limerick. It begins with the studio recording of “Ave Maria” as sung by O’Riordan and Luciano Pavarotti. She is buried alongside her father.
seamus dubhghaill 