U2 IN IRELAND: Aggressive Pacifists In A War-Torn Land

U2 IN IRELAND Aggressive Pacifists In A War-Torn Land

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Andy Hughes

U2 are an Irish band. That may sound like an obvious statement about the biggest rock band in the world, but just because it’s obvious doesn’t make it any less vital. The fact that U2 are Irish is precisely what makes U2 what they are— the biggest rock band in the world. Yes, they’ve grown into that. They could grow out of it again. But they are, always were, and always will be an Irish band. That will never change.

Irishness is something almost impossible to pin down and explain. It’s about being totally aware of your roots and your culture, your country’s politics, its history, its attitudes and its failures. Irish children grow up with a knowledge of political and economic history that most countries ignore; they know traditional songs that have been handed down for generations. They know that their capital city, Dublin, is losing its grip on its youth as they fight to find a future they know they’ll never find at home—and so they leave in droves to try and make a life elsewhere in the world. Everyone needs a shining example and for Dublin’s youth, U2 are about as good as you can get. They are local boys who’ve done it. They made a life, they made a mark. It can be done.

“I’m not just aware of it, I’m painfully aware of it literally,’’ confirms Bono Vox. “People on the same street I grew up on are having to leave Ireland and go to America to find jobs. It’s as if the rise of U2 is only equalled by the fall of our contemporaries.”

How can a man whose band has sojjd in excess of 20 million albums in seven years honestly say that he understands what it’s like to be poor? Because finding your way out of the hopeless situation that afflicts the people U2 grew up with doesn’t mean you simply forget all about it. Having an American Express Gold Card doesn’t shut off your appreciation of what goes on around you. Bono understands that perfectly. It’s part of being Irish.

What about those at home in Dublin who are looking to the example that U2 have willingly (or maybe even unwillingly) set for them? Kenny and Birdy are two teenagers who live in the Ballymun district there. Every city in the world has its own Ballymun. It’s the area where, when you write it as your address on a job application, the vacancy’s suddenly been filled.

“If you’re from Ballymun, you’ve no chance really,” says Kenny with the matter-of-fact attitude that comes with the territory. “Ballymun’s a name, it just has a name for itself, y’know?”

“Not all of us are into drugs,” Birdy continues. “But they make you feel like you’re different. You feel like you’re one of them.”

“The future as I see it is the band,” reckons Kenny. “With unemployment as it is, the only way out is the band.” The band he refers to is Maximum Joy, in which Kenny plays guitar and Birdy sings with a fierce passion about getting away from their surroundings, about breaking the mold of hopelessness that threatens to strangle the tremendous spirit that makes Ireland such a great country. Would Bono understand that kind of attitude? Using a band as a ticket out of oblivion? Well, songs like “Running To Stand Still” and “Where The Streets Have No Name” come from an Irish heart that’s been there. Bono grew up in house number 10, Cedarwood Road. It’s just down the road from Kenny’s house. It’s in Ballymun.

If you cannot be Irish without understanding frustration, you certainly cannot be Irish without understanding its twin horns of dilemma, politics and religion. In Ireland, those subjects don’t crop up so much in the context of lyrics and impassioned stage speeches—they’re the bedrock on which bands are built.

“A lot of people think rock ’n’ roll should be escapist, just about having a good time and getting your rocks off, whatever,” explains The Edge. “I think rock ’n’ roll has always had that, but why shouldn’t it also face what’s actually happening and try and deal with that as well?”

And for the religious idealists that weave their message in and out of political idealism?

“Come on, a lot of people who are religious don’t have any belief, let’s not be naive about that,” The Edge replies with a wry grin. “There’s a hell of a lot of people who see religion as a social thing, or in certain parts of the world, Northern Ireland included, it’s a racist thing—a chance to be on one side or the other.”

The question of Northern Ireland has plagued U2 in their travels around the world, and, as you’d expect, they’ve met it head on. As the political and religious divisions of the province continue to be fought with guns and bombs, some American fans felt that a song like “Sunday Bloody Sunday” was a typical song of rebellion, and that Bono obviously sided with the men of violence: the IRA. Bono’s quick to put that idea out of people’s minds—indeed, to scorch the place where it rested so that it will never grow again.

“We were on our tour in America, the last tour, and someone threw a tricolor up on the stage—the Irish flag, right?—and I found myself in a rage. I picked it up and said ‘You see this flag, you see this color, what color is it?’ And they all shouted ‘orange!’ And I said ‘You see this color, what color is it?’ And they shouted ‘green!’ And I said ‘You see this color, what color is it?’ And they shouted ‘white,’ and I said ‘All I can see is fucking red.’ I hope they got the message.

“When the hunger strikes were on in Ireland, we were in the States, and people were throwing money onto the stage and chanting ‘Up the IRA’ and so on,” he adds pensively.

The theory being that U2 are an Irish band and therefore must fit into the myth of the glorious revolution and freedom from the shackles?

“Of course. I’m very clear about how I feel about that—I would love to see Ireland united, North and South, but I would never, ever support any man who would put a gun to someone else’s head to see that dream come true.”

As Bono has always said in announcing “Sunday Bloody Sunday,” this is not a song of rebellion, and he’s happy to shatter the illusions of anyone who would like to turn it into a political anthem for violence.

“We wrote ‘Sunday Bloody Sunday’ in a rage. I set out this story, broken bottles under children’s feet, bodies strewn across a dead end street, but I won’t heed the battle call that puts my back up, puts my back against the wall and then the battle’s just begun, there’s many lost, but tell me who has won? The trenches dug within our hearts, mothers, children, brothers, sisters torn apart, how long, how long must we sing this song?

It doesn’t leave a lot to say. it’s a powerful anthem derived from a massive societal frustration—and it’s inevitable that someone will twist the point. Bono refuses to let himself off so lightly.

“I’ve often thought to myself that maybe the song is a failure, that we didn’t make the point we wanted to make. That, in fact, we’ve alienated the Republicans who wanted to use it as a battle anthem and the Unionists who see it as a slap in the face.”

Who has won, indeed?

• • •

If rock and politics can be mixed, they will be mixed, not least by politicians forever eagle-eyed when it comes to getting a foothold on the important youth vote. It happened in the U.S. when President Reagan allied his thoughts to Springsteen’s “Born In The U.S.A.,” simultaneously missing the point of that song by several miles and prompting the Boss to deny the President’s sentiments, thank you very much. Meanwhile, across the water, U2 are brought into a speech by former premier Garratt Fitzgerald, who confined himself to praising the impact of U2 on American political thinking to the extent that the Democrats are re-thinking their strategy for the elections next year, quote: “To re-evaluate the understanding of how young people in America think and feel.” But, in his favor, Fitzgerald is keen to make the point that it’s all down to heritage in the end—“What other country but Ireland could bring about such an influential phenomenon in the United States?” A favorite criticism of Bono s attitude to the political divisions in Ireland is that he was born and raised in Dublin, in the “safe” South, and he has no right to compose messages like “Sunday Bloody Sunday” (rebel song or not!) without direct experience. Bono is typically candid when faced with such opinion.

“On one level, I’ve no right to comment about the troubles in the North, because I am from the South, but at the same time, I’m an Irishman. I live in Ireland and I believe in the country, North and South, so in a way I’m literally torn in two about it. My mother was a Protestant, my father a Catholic—I was brought up in both churches and I feel equally at home in either ... or equally not at home.” The concept of his parentage being a microcosm of the root of hundreds of years of bloodshed and hatred brings a wry smile to Bono’s lips.

“When I think of ‘peace,’ ” Bono explains, “I think of hippies with flowers in their hair. I think you can be aggressive, you can be an aggressive pacifist, and I think that’s what U2 consider themselves to be... aggressive pacifists. I talk about Gandhi or Martin Luther King, and one of the reasons I’m attracted to people like that is because I’m the person who definitely would not turn the other cheek! I grew up with violence in me, it’s still in me and I despise it.”

If for nothing else, Bono is to be applauded that his inspiration is not on the level of fat cat rock stars who write about starvation when they live on last week’s caviar because it’s the chef’s day off. His appreciation of the world of war is very real: he visited San Salvador to see just what it’s like, an experience that burned itself into his consciousness, and was only exorcised by the writing of “Bullet The Blue Sky.” It may have eased the experience, but Bono recalls it with grim familiarity.

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“I was on my way to look at a farm cooperative in the hills just outside San Salvador and we walked into a kind of ambush. What they do is designate areas as ‘fire zones’ and they tell all the rebel sympathizers to leave an area by a certain time, and then they just bombard it with shells. I felt sick, really sick. I tried to write ‘Bullet The Blue Sky’ about the fear I felt. I wanted to exorcise the fear and I wanted the music to paint the picture. When I got home, I said to Edge, ‘I want to put El Salvador through your amplifier.’ ”

El Salvador through an amplifier in Ireland. It’s just this passion that’s made U2 a band the world watches. America inspires them, El Salvador humbles them, England analyzes them, Japan clamors for them, Europe adores them and Amnesty International appreciates them. But Ireland forged U2: it made them what they are, and makes them what they will be.

U2 are an Irish band.