Suzanne Harrington: Goodbye Dolly — we will always love you

Your magic transcended musical genres, as you stood in front of us, a self-created goddess of glorious kitsch.

Dolly wrote 3,000 songs in her lifetime, including 25 number-one hits. Picture: AP Photo/Charlie Riedel

Wed, 26 Aug, 2026 - 10:02

Suzanne Harrington is an Irish journalist, author and critic .

Nooooo! Not Dolly! Does the Grim Reaper have dyslexia? He took the wrong prominent 80-year-old American whose first name starts with D.

Dolly, we adored you. Old, young, gay, straight, black, white, religious, secular, and across the entire political spectrum, you shone your light equally - and we all bathed in it. We unequivocally, universally loved you. Even those of us who had never listened to a country and western song in our lives adored you. You were bigger than music, bigger than showbiz, bigger even than your own fabulous wigs.