Drunk Dolores drowned in her bath at hotel
SINGER Dolores O’Riordan drowned in a bath after a drinking binge, an inquest heard yesterday. The Cranberries star, 46, from Limerick in Ireland, was four times the drink-drive limit when she was found dead next door to her partner’s room at the five-star Hilton Hotel in Park Lane, central London.
The inquest – on what would have been the mother-of-three’s 47th birthday – was told she drank five miniature bottles of booze and champagne before falling “unconscious” in the early hours of January 15 this year.
A post-mortem examination also revealed an “above therapeutic amount” of a prescription drug in her blood but that was not said to have led to her drowning.
PC Natalie Smart said: “I saw Ms O’Riordan in the bath with her nose and mouth submerged in the water.”
Westminster coroner Dr Shirley Radcliffe said the singer’s death was a “tragic accident” despite evidence she considered taking her life months earlier.
ZUCCHERO - PURE LOVE feat. Dolores O'Riordan
I saw Ms O’Riordan in the bath with her nose and mouth submerged in the water
Psychiatrist Seamus O’Ceallaigh, who treated Ms O’Riordan, said she had attempted to write a suicide note in September last year.
But the coroner said: “She saw her psychiatrist on January 9 and he found her to be in good spirits, no evidence of any psychiatric disturbances, no evidence of any thoughts of self-harm.”
Giving a ruling of accidental death, she said the star died from drowning and alcohol intoxication.