Judge to rule on legal action against O'Riordan

Judgment is expected today over claims that Cranberries singer Dolores O’Riordan had ill-treated a former nanny.

The rock star said that she had nothing to do with the hiring and firing of her staff, including the woman suing her for breach of contract and alleged false imprisonment.

She strenuously denied the claims of Joy Fahy against herself and husband Don Burton.

She said she knew very little about 34-year-old Ms Fahy, about her employment terms and the life she had left behind to look after their baby son.

Ms Fahy, who has also worked for U2 drummer Larry Mullen and supermodel Elle MacPherson, worked for the couple in 1999.

She told the High Court in Dublin that the clothes she left at their Co Limerick home had never been returned, that complaints about expenses and irregular hours had been ignored and that she was expected to work in difficult conditions with no transport or mobile phone.

Ms O’Riordan said she left all employment issues to her husband, acknowledging that in general staff were hired on a trial three-month basis and no written contracts were issued. This was “rather unfortunate”, she admitted, in Ms Fahy’s case.

Under cross-examination, the singer described Ms Fahy’s statement as “downright lies” including allegations that she repeatedly and excessively ironed.

The nanny claims that during a two-week holiday with the family at their Canadian home, she was told she must look after the baby for six weeks alone while the couple went away.

When she expressed her concerns, Mr Burton’s reaction was so severe she was forced to barricade herself in a room with a suitcase, she said.

But O’Riordan denied suggestions that he was “drunk, enraged, his eyes red and his fists clenched” and that he yelled he would “get her out of here on the first bloody flight home”.

The 33-year-old singer said: “My husband was absolutely never drunk.

“He would never drink so much morning, noon and night.”

Ms Fahy alleges that her life was shattered when she sacked by the couple.

She is suing them for €12,700, a Cherokee jeep and the deposit for an apartment, which she claims were promised to her if the one-year verbal contract was terminated.

When the singer was confronted about Ms Fahy’s feelings, she said: “I wouldn’t analyse her psychology that deeply. I wouldn’t know how she’d think.

“We didn’t fire her. She left.”