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New & Noteworthy Cranberries ‘Wake up’: bright and surly

February 16, 2011

By Staff Reporter

By Eileen Murphy

It’s been a while since the Cranberries were at the top of the Billboard charts with hits like "Linger" and "Zombie," but if you think the Limerick quartet’s worried about playing catch-up, you’ve got another thing coming, bucko. Britney? Christina? Limp Bizkit? Pfffeh!

"We don’t really worry about it because we have our own website," lead singer Dolores O’Riordan told Rolling Stone recently.

"We know how many Cranberry fans there are out there that have been following the band for years and years and years," she said.

The band is in the studio at present, putting the finishing touches on their fifth album, "Wake Up and Smell the Coffee." And in between takes, the band mates have been cooing over baby pictures and comparing barf stories. Which, they say, is a good thing.

"You kind of enjoy it more if you have children," said O’Riordan, who recently gave birth to her second child.

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"If the band is your whole life you get sick of it, because you’re eating, drinking, sleeping the Cranberries.

"When you go and have children you have something real and something that’s more important ultimately," she said (obviously a thinly veiled reference to stretch marks.)

"It’s easier to [be in a band]," said guitarist Noel Hogan. "With a baby, you can’t take a lunch break."

The album should hit stores in October, and the band plans a U.S. tour next year. But if they don’t quite get back to their former lofty heights, the band says they don’t care.

"Sure, we were the big stars earlier," O’Riordan said. "But what happens is a lot of bands can’t follow up and we followed it up time and time again.

"We’ve been there, done that and now we’re just kind of surfing the waves and enjoying things."

Wedding a ‘Corrs’ for celebration

There wasn’t a dry eye in the house last Saturday when Sharon Corr exchanged I-dos with her barrister sweetie, Gavin Bonnar, in St. John’s Church, Cratloe, Co. Clare. We hear that the groom was so overcome with emotion at the sight of the gorgeous Corr in her lace-trimmed, halter-necked gown that he burst into tears when she began her walk down the aisle. (Note to self: when get married, borrow Shazzer’s dress.)

The ceremony was a closely guarded secret last week, with guests learning the venue at the last minute. Rumor had it that the pair would tie the knot in Corr’s hometown of Dundalk, but that was to throw reporters and gawkers off the trail. (And really, how many churches could there possibly be in Dundalk?)

Bridesmaids Caroline and Andrea Corr wore lilac chiffon dresses designed by Irish style maven Brid Nihill. Sharon’s gown was by London-based designer Elspeth Gibson. (Of course, all of them would have looked radiant in Hefty bags, but that’s cruel fate, right?)

But back to the wedding.

"It was a very emotional ceremony," Sharon said later.

"I was perfectly fine until two minutes before we got to the church," she recalled.

"But then worry struck. Thankfully, everything went perfectly.

Bonnar admitted that he was a little overwhelmed by the sight of his bride-to-be.

"When I saw Sharon, I just went to bits," he said. (As do 50 million other guys, but that’s another story.)

As soon as Sharon said "I do," Gavin planted a kiss on her lips, causing the congregation to burst into spontaneous applause.

The reception (in high society, they don’t call it "afters") was held at Dromoland Castle in Newcastle-on-Fergus. Entertainment was provided by a Beatles cove band, though naturally, the superstar siblings played a few numbers themselves.

The couple are off on a top-secret honeymoon, then it’s back to Belfast, where they make their home.

In more Corr news, we hear that Andrea is up for the lead in the British TV remake of "Dr. Zhivago". The littlest Corr faces some stiff competition for the role; she’s up against such screen luminaries as Kate Winslet and Anna Friel.

And for those who keep track of such things, the Corrs have contributed a song to the soundtrack album for the Julia Roberts/Catherine Zeta Jones movie, "America’s Sweethearts." The song, "All the Love in the World," was produced by Mutt Lange, the Svengali who made his missus, Shania Twain, a crossover superstar.

By the way, we hope you enjoyed that lovely picture of Caroline Corr that we ran with the story last week. Obviously, she wasn’t the one getting married. That Michael Flatley show had us all addled. (Yes, it’s a lame excuse, but we’re using it anyway.)

They have a gift for giving

Maybe we’ve been editing the Irish Echo’s annual wedding supplement for too many years, but we just love reading about all the little details that go into planning the big day. So we were intrigued to hear that Sharon Corr had registered for gifts at Ireland’s most exclusive department store, Brown Thomas.

The crafty Corr used her husband’s name for the registry (to keep the press and the merely curious at bay), but that proved no obstacle to a determined wedding busybody like us. So, in case you’re wondering what kind of trinkets, baubles, doo-dahs and luxuries the rich and famous crave, here’s a list:

€ Weber silver gas grill

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