Don Burton – Everything About Dolores O’Riordan’s Ex-Husband

Quick Facts

Net WorthNot Known
SalaryNot Known
HeightNot Known
Date of BirthNot Known
ProfessionCelebrities

Don Burton is a Canadian music executive. He is known to be a former tour manager of the popular award-winning British band, Duran Duran. In the course of his career in entertainment, he later became manager of the alternative rock band, The Cranberries. Burton was ex-husband to Irish singer and The Cranberries band member, Dolores O’Riordan to whom he was married to for 20 years.

Don Burton – Bio

Don Burton was born in 1962 in Canada. He grew up in Canada with dreams of working in the music industry. As a boy, he worked at his father’s trucking business as an administrative officer while also playing in a band. He got a lucky break in the early 1990s when British new wave band, Duran Duran offered him a job as their tour manager. In 1994, he became manager for The Cranberries.

Burton’s marriage to Dolores O’Riordan was his second. He was first married in 1993 and had a child from that marriage. In 1999, a nanny Burton and O’Riordan had employed to care for their baby took them to court, accusing Burton of heavy drinking, reckless behavior, and imprisonment. The case was ruled in the couple’s favor as the nanny, Ms. Fahy failed to provide enough evidence to substantiate her claims.

Relationship with Dolores O’Riordan

Don Burton met Dolores O’Riordan in 1994 while he was the tour manager for Duran Duran as the band had gone on tour with The Cranberries that year. A love affair sparked up between the two not long after they met, this culminated into a marriage in July of 1994. They had three children together. They welcomed their first child (Taylor) in 1997, their second (Molly) in 2001 and their third (Dakota) was born in 2005.

Don Burton’s wife Dolores O’Riordan was born on the 6th of September 1971 in Limerick Ireland to Eileen and Terence O’Riordan. Her parents were dedicated Catholics and she and her six siblings were raised accordingly.

O’Riordan was schooled at Laurel Hill Colaiste in Limerick, the school is one the Faithful Companions of Jesus, Sisters Institutions of the Roman Catholic Church. She was made head girl while at Laurel Hill Colaiste but dropped out before graduation. She would later reveal that she paid very little attention to her academic work and instead spent the bulk of her time writing music.

After Niall Quinn left The Cranberries (then known as The Cranberry) in 1990, the band put an advertisement asking for a female singer to join the band. O’Riordan landed the job by coming up with a version of what would later become one of the band’s hit songs, Linger.

Soon after Don Burton’s wife joined the band, they released the EP, Nothing Left at All, which was soon followed by a demo that included other versions of their hit songs, Dreams and Linger.

The Cranberries ultimately signed a record deal with British record label, Island Records so O’Riordan and her fellow band members went on to release five albums between 1993 and 2001 including Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Can’t We, released in 1993, To the Faithful Departed in 1996 and Wake Up and Smell the Coffee released in 2001.

The Cranberries also put together a compilation of greatest hits that was released in 2002 while still signed to the Island Records label. The band agreed to take a break in 2003 so individual members could work solo projects.

Also Read: 

During this hiatus, O’Riordan got involved in several collaborations with other artists including Zucchero on the song, Pure Love, Angelo Badalamenti on some of the soundtracks to the crime-horror film, Evilenko. Her solo album titled Are You Listening was released in 2007, among the popular singles from the album are Ordinary Day and When We Were Young.

The Cranberries came back together in 2009. Until Don Burton’s wife’s death in January 2018, Dolores remained a member of The Cranberries as well as the band D.A.R.K which she had formed alongside Ole Koretsky and Andy Rourke in 2014.

Divorce and Wife’s Death

Before their separation and O’Riordan’s untimely death, Don Burton and O’Riordan had lived with their children on a large farm they in Limerick, Ireland. After selling the farm in 2004, they moved to Dublin where they lived most of the year and spent their summers in Ontario, Canada.

However, in 2009, the family relocated to Canada to live full time. Don Burton and Dolores O’Riordan got divorced in 2014 after 20 years of marriage. Burton remained with their three children after the divorce.

Dolores O’Riordan passed away in January 2018, while on a trip to London for a recording. No information has been provided publicly as to the cause of her death.

Also Read: Top 10 Richest People in the world with full biography and details.