Tuesday, April 30, 2019

Nun who inspired U2 song is Bono’s guest at Croke Park gig

Singer met Sr Anne Carr in Malawi in 2002 and wrote ‘Crumbs from Your Table’ about her.

Sr Anne Carr, a Medical Missionary of Mary sister,  took Bono  on a tour of a  hospital in Lilongwe in Malawi. “I said he was my nephew because strangers weren’t allowed in the hospital.” Photograph: Brenda Fitzsimons
Sr Anne Carr, a Medical Missionary of Mary sister, took Bono on a tour of a hospital in Lilongwe in Malawi. “I said he was my nephew because strangers weren’t allowed in the hospital.” Photograph: Brenda Fitzsimons



 A Medical Missionary of Mary, Sr Anne Carr, born in Dublin and raised in Cork, spent 32 years in Malawi caring for the very sick. She is subject of the band’s 2004 song Crumbs from Your Table and is looking forward to attending the band’s Croke Park concert on Saturday night as Bono’s guest.


“From the brightest star/Comes the blackest hole/You had so much to offer/Why did you offer your soul?”


She has since returned to Ireland where her new role involves promoting “mission awareness” of what her congregation and others do in Africa, Central and South America and elsewhere .
It was Sr Anne’s mother who first made her think of the Medical Missionaries of Mary as she had always supported them. After school she joined the congregation in 1968, training to be a nurse in Drogheda and later as a midwife in Scotland.
Mobile clinic.
In 1979 she was posted to Mzuzu in northern Malawi at the maternity unit in St John’s Hospital. Later she worked on a mobile clinic which toured surrounding villages. She “loved it”, particularly the , she said.

Ten years later she came back to Ireland to train as a hospital chaplain. Returning to Malawi, she set up an interdenominational school in the capital of Lilongwe to train hospital chaplains.
It was while she was in Lilongwe that Bono happened on the scene in 2002. She took him on a tour of the local 1,000-bed hospital, which was running at 300 per cent capacity. A lot of patients had HIV.
Bono was “wonderful”, she said. She also did a very Irish thing. “I said he was my nephew because strangers weren’t allowed in the hospital.” She was Bono’s very own Aunty Anne. Bono was very kind to the patients and shook hands with everyone.


"Where you live should not decide/Whether you live or whether you die/Three to a bed/Sister Anne, she said/Dignity passes by."



Afterwards Bono made generous donations to the hospital.
In 2004 U2 released their album How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb. The CD was sent to her in Lilongwe with a cover note saying Bono wanted her to have it, which she thought was “ very nice” and “put it in my room”.

Unheard


It rested there, unheard, until another Irishwoman in Lilongwe, Anne Conway, asked her had she listened to the track Crumbs from Your Table. “It’s about you,” she said. Sr Anne listened to it then, with a mixture of embarrassment and gratitude.
Over the years she and Bono “have kept up personal contact”. He “kept inviting me to things” but, generally, she felt “too shy” to accept. An exception was Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark, the 2010 musical by Bono and the Edge which she attended in New York.


This year and late in the day she decided she would like to attend U2’s Croke Park concert but tickets were sold out. Bono intervened directly and invited her and friends as his personal guests.
She will be accompanied tonight by an old school friend from Cork, her (real) nephew and his girlfriend.


www.irishtimes.com

Monday, April 15, 2019

The Edge collaborates on new horse sculpture

The Edge: who's gonna buy his wild horse sculpture?

U2 guitarist The Edge has unveiled a sculpture he has been working on, which imagines "a zebra crossed with an Arabian horse" as part of a charity art fundraiser for children and injured jockeys.

The musician worked with his friend and regular collaborator, Irish artist Duda, to create the piece, which is entitled Sheba, for the under stARTers orders 21 horse art exhibition in Naas in Co. Kildare.

The public art exhibition and charity fundraiser saw 21 life-sized fibreglass horses painted by some of Ireland’s most highly-acclaimed artists.

Speaking about his creation, The Edge commented "This is a wonderful initiative to be a part of in aid of two most worthy charities, Irish Injured Jockeys and Sensational Kids.





"Duda has captured my vision of Sheba perfectly, I’m thrilled with it. The concept is a simple one: I’ve always loved zebras but as a kid discovered that they could never be tamed or ridden like their cousin the horse. This is my fantasy: a cross between an Arabian horse and a zebra!" 

The exhibition was launched at Naas Racecourse on Saturday 21 of Ireland’s top equine artists were asked to paint their own unique version of a life-sized resin fibreglass horse sculpture.


www.rte.ie/

Wednesday, April 3, 2019

No Line on the Horizon: Ten Year Anniversary



Velvety. Groovy. Classic. Revealing…
At ten years of age, No Line On The Horizon, remastered, with new remixes and on double vinyl.
Friends of the band have something to say:



https://u2.tumblr.com/post/182980515775/velvety-groovy-classic-revealing-at-ten-years

https://u2.lnk.to/NLOTH


Friday, March 22, 2019

New career path for Adam Clayton?



Adam Clayton walked the runway on Thursday at the Hermes fashion show in London. Adam tweeted about it from the band's official account, saying he had "stepped into the frame" -- a reference to the name of the show, "Hermes: Step Into The Frame." If that reference wasn't clear enough that he'd actually modeled at the show, and not just attended, an Instagram video by GQ editor Dylan Jones gave it all away:





source: /www.atu2.com
IG: Dylan Jones (dylanjonesgq)

Wednesday, March 13, 2019

Happy Birthday!



"...And I understand /These winds and tides/ This change of times/Won't drag you away..."


Happy birthday, Adam!!

Wednesday, December 26, 2018


Bono and Edge busk for the homeless at festive charity gig in Dublin

Bono and The Edge joined by host of other Irish musicians for fundraising show
The Edge and Bono of U2 take part in the annual Christmas Eve busk in Dublin.
 The Edge and Bono of U2 take part in the annual Christmas Eve busk in Dublin. Photograph: Lorraine O’Sullivan/PA
Bono has joined The Edge at the annual Christmas Eve charity busking session outside the Gaiety theatre in Dublin, performing along with a host of other famous Irish musicians in aid of the city’s homeless.
The event took place in support of the Simon Community, a homelessness charity that helps people who are homeless or at risk of becoming so. It was Bono’s first appearance at the charity gig in three years, and his seventh overall.
The U2 members serenaded onlookers with a song from their latest album, as well as two Christmas carols – O Holy Night and O Night Divine – before they were joined by an ensemble to sing Christmas (Baby Please Come Home), a rock song originally sung by Darlene Love in 1963. Bono told the crowd: “As the buckets go around, fill them with silver, fill them with hope – [it’s] the season of hope.”
Crowds had gathered around a makeshift stage on Grafton Street from 4pm on Monday. Other performers included organiser Glen Hansard, Damien Rice, Danny O’Reilly, Imelda May, Luke Clerkin, Mundy and Róisín O.
Rice played a slowed-down cover of Creep, the Radiohead song from their first album, while Hansard played guitar for a rousing rendition of George Michael’s Faith, sung by a man named Philip who is currently in a Dublin hostel and is assisted by the Simon Community.
There are almost 10,000 homeless people across Ireland, including nearly 4,000 children. Inner City Helping Homeless, a Dublin charity, said more than 100 people were found sleeping rough on Dublin’s streets on Sunday night. Affordable new houses are not being built quickly enough and rent rates have risen significantly, campaigners have claimed.

www.theguardian.com