by Michael Sharkey

Rock star Bono has told how John Hume and David Trimble left him with treasured memories of 1998.

The U2 frontman identified the historic moment he held hands with both politicians as one of the highlights of his year.

It happened after they joined him on stage in Belfast during a concert for a Yes vote on the Good Friday peace deal.

In a personal review of 1998 Bono admits: “To be the filling in the John Hume -David Trimble sandwich is a very great honour.”

But he modestly insists that U2’s role in the event - organised by Northern Ireland band Ash - was a proud but small one.

And the singer tells how he was moved later when the SDLP and Ulster Unionist leaders scooped the Nobel peace prize.

“It was as if the rest of the world had put its arms around us.”

It was a year that also saw U2 perform in some of the world’s other political hotspots.

Bono boasts that in Chile they got a chance to “harass” General Pinochet, now under arrest in Britain.

“On a live TV broadcast of Pop Mart, 50 or so Mothers of the Disappeared walked on stage with photo placards of their lost loved ones, some of which had been tortured to death in the same stadium.”

Writing in Q magazine, Bono also recalls his sadness at the deaths of his hero Frank Sinatra and his pal Michael Hutchence.

© 1999 Daily Mirror. All rights reserved.

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