Believe it or not, Ireland's Great Potato Famine still had a lingering effect when it came to the childhood Christmases of Cranberries singer Dolores O'Riordan.

"When I was a kid -- it was funny -- the Irish, when we were growing up in the '70s, there was such a major emphasis put on food, obviously because the Irish people were still a little bit tainted from the famine," said O'Riordan, 30, in Toronto recently to promote the Cranberries' latest album, Wake Up And Smell The Coffee.

"So the dinner on Christmas day, it was just way too much food. And I remember if we had chocolate biscuits or something, we weren't allowed to have them until Christmas Day. So we'd be all foraging around the tree, like looking at the chocolates and the biscuits and everything, and then suddenly -- 'TING!' -- when Mom rang the bell 'DINNER!' -- it was like, 'Yes!' Everybody totally pigged out. So the food was a big, big thing in Ireland."

This year holiday celebrations should be no different for O'Riordan, whose Toronto-born husband Don Burton will be cooking a turkey for their brood at home in Ireland.

The couple will be joined by their two young children -- 10-month-old daughter Molly and four-year-old son Taylor -- O'Riordan's 10-year-old stepson Donny, mother and mother-in-law.