On September 27, 2012, U2′s The Edge was seen on stage performing with Bryan Ferry at the Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital Friendship Ball in London, England. They played the Irish folk song “Carrickfergus”, named after the town of Carrickfergus in County Antrim, Northern Ireland.
by Irish Central
Bono and his wife Ali usually spend their summer vacays in the south of France, but this year they’ve also added Ibiza to their itinerary. While there they met up with Matthew McConaughey and his pregnant wife Camila, as you can see from our picture, with Bono taking plenty of protection from the scorching sun with his hat and black shirt.
Here’s no surprise – Simon Cowell would love to have Bono appear on his reality singing competition The X Factor. Bosses at American Idol and all the other shows feel the same.
“Bono is one of the top choices each year when shake-ups on these shows come around. He has repeatedly shrugged off talk of appearing as a judge as he hasn’t the time and it’s not really up his street at the moment,” a source told The Irish Sun.
“As far as producers are concerned, who better in the world to judge you than someone considered a kind of God of the music world?”
© Copyright 2012 IrishCentral LLC. All rights reserved.
Fox News/AP
A former household aide to U2 bassist Adam Clayton received a seven-year prison sentence Friday after an Irish jury unanimously found her guilty of embezzling more than $3.6 million from the musician.
Carol Hawkins, 48, offered no response to the sentence as prison guards led her out of Dublin Criminal Court.
Hawkins had been free on bail after being found guilty last week of 181 counts of writing checks from Clayton’s bank account for her own use from 2004 to 2008. Records showed she used the money to buy designer clothing, 22 thoroughbred horses, a car, university education for her two children and first-class flights.
Judge Patrick McCartan said in his ruling that Hawkins deserved a severe sentence because she had demonstrated no remorse, falsely tried to pin blame for her grandiose spending on the often-absent Clayton, and could attempt similar offenses again if not jailed.
“Nothing, frankly, could explain away the scale of this dishonesty other than the greed in pursuit of a lavish lifestyle that was no responsibility of Mr. Clayton’s,” the judge said.
Dismissing her claims that she hadn’t understood that what she was doing was wrong, the judge said, “These were crimes rooted in greed and nothing else. Whether she was a fool or clever person really matters very little.”
McCartan also ordered Hawkins to surrender the profits from a sale of a New York City apartment to Clayton to help reimburse him for his losses. The potential amount wasn’t specified in court. Her defense attorney, Ken Fogarty, said she didn’t have money hidden away overseas and would do all she could to repay the $3.6 million.
Clayton, 52, wasn’t present in court to see his longtime domestic assistant sent to prison.
During the trial, Hawkins had claimed that Clayton either authorized her expenditures or that she had paid him back by using her own money to pay his bills.
But Clayton testified he’d known nothing about Hawkins’ four-year spending spree and had given her access to his bank accounts purely so she could pay bills related to his Georgian mansion, Danesmoate, in south Dublin.
During the three-week trial, a Dublin travel agent testified that Hawkins booked one flight for her husband to Miami that cost euro19,285.08 ($24,420) and another for herself to London and Cincinnati, Ohio, that cost euro16,139.66 ($20,438).
Clayton testified he was stunned to discover that Hawkins spent euro434,000 ($550,000) on acquiring 22 racehorses, saying he had no interest in horses or gambling.
Clayton said he first met Hawkins in 1992 when she and her husband were managing a Caribbean island hotel. He said he recruited her to keep the fridge full, pay household bills and look after the place while he was traveling. He paid her a euro48,000 ($61,000) annual salary and let Hawkins and her then-husband live in the house rent-free.
Hawkins worked for him for nearly 17 years, initially as a maid and cook, until he discovered her spending spree in 2008.
© 2012 FOX News Network, LLC. All rights reserved.
By Associated Press
DUBLIN — In the beginning there was Bono. And what a baby face he had.
Photographs documenting the gritty beginnings of U2 in the smoky pubs and clubs of 1970s Dublin are being unveiled Thursday at an exhibition in the band’s home city. Much of the exhibition by photographer Patrick Brocklebank has never been seen before.
Brocklebank’s black-and-white images capture the teenage Bono, The Edge, Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen in 1978 and 1979 gigs, their vibrant hairdos and fashion missteps, and their clowning around in impromptu shoots and scruffy nighttime hangouts.
At the time, fellow teenager Brocklebank recalls he thought U2 might just be the one local act to reach the big time — not because they sounded better than their rivals, but because they were harder-working.
“I actually preferred a few of the other Dublin bands at the time, the Virgin Prunes and the Blades,” Brocklebank said. “But the U2 people really stood out because they were organized. They knew what they wanted to achieve, even then.
“And of course Bono was never meek or mild. He was the ideal frontman,” he said. “Sometimes in the pub after a gig, you would hear Bono before you saw him. He always had a forceful personality that set him apart from the crowd.”
U2 manager Paul McGuinness is launching the exhibition Thursday night at The Little Museum of Dublin, a townhouse whose walls are filled, floor to ceiling, with eclectic memorabilia of Ireland’s turbulent 20th century. The 32-photo show will be on display through Sept. 2, and Brocklebank also is selling original prints of 10 images through the museum’s Web site.
Brocklebank was shooting for the Irish music magazine Hot Press in 1978 when he attended several of U2′s first Dublin gigs and became their occasional roadie. His first photo on Sept. 9, 1978, is of a muscle-shirted Bono, mike in hand, performing as the opening act for English punk rockers The Stranglers in front of a foul crowd of hard-core punks. U2 was paid 50 Irish pounds (about $80) for the gig.
The Stranglers’ pre-set equipment took up most of the stage, leaving U2 only one claustrophobic corner. Brocklebank recalled that fans, reflecting the punk crudities of the day, spat and tossed lit cigarettes at them throughout their set. Afterward, he said, Bono confronted The Stranglers in their dressing room about the shoddy treatment.
Barely a week later, Brocklebank took an iconic photo of U2 after another gig: the four boys posing backstage, two with fake guns in hand. Later that night, he took the first known photo of the band with their brand-new manager, McGuinness, over pints at Dublin’s long-closed Granary Bar.
The band’s humble beginnings take pride of place in that photo. Mullen, the drummer who founded the band by posting a recruitment ad on his high school’s bulletin board, can be seen holding up U2′s first award: First place in a talent competition in Limerick the previous St. Patrick’s Day, grand prize 500 Irish pounds — sufficient finance for the band to cut its first demo tape.
Brocklebank also shot publicity photos in February 1979 before U2′s first tour of Britain. A sequence of 12 images shows the band donning a range of poses — messing with fire extinguishers, pretending to be interviewed on TV, climbing atop air vents — inside the corridors and classrooms of Trinity College Dublin.
Formed in 1976, the band first performed under the name Feedback, then The Hype, before settling on U2 in March 1978. Since 1980 the band has recorded 12 albums, sold more than 150 million records, won 22 Grammys and become one of the highest-grossing live acts in history.
___
If You Go…
LITTLE MUSEUM OF DUBLIN: 15 St. Stephen’s Green, near Dawson Street, http://www.littlemuseum.ie/ . Open daily 11 a.m.-6 p.m. and until 8 p.m. on Thursdays. Exhibit of early photos of U2 through Sept. 2. Adults, 5 euros (about $6.50), children under 10, free (children under 16 free on weekends).
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
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