Days of Heaven by Declan Lynch

the Irish embedded themselves in that great football city, you can walk round Liverpool today and see ‘Irish’ things and encounter
‘Irish’ people that you would hardly see in Ireland any more. A lot of this would be in the area of drinking and socialising in general, in a deep but strangely attractive melancholia
and an alienation from England in general — and they’ve had a few decent bands, too.
    So the Frankies, when they came to the actual island of Ireland, were just coming home — probably to a place that was becoming more fashionable than their own.
    In fact, years later I did another interview with the three heterosexual members of the group, who spoke movingly of how they had found themselves for a while living in Co. Kilkenny, where the
owner of the local video store had assured them he could get them any amount of hard-core pornography that they needed — ‘the serious fucking donkey stuff’.
    Sheffield, too, was a great old football city, but Joe Elliott was discovering the spirit of gracious living which pervaded Killiney Hill, with Bono up the road and maybe Adam Clayton dropping
around on his way back to his stately home in Rathfarnham for a rap and a night-cap. And Van the Man was holed up there somewhere.
    Joe would also find a girlfriend here, Karla. So despite the various amendments to the Constitution which were causing such a distraction, and despite innumerable letters to the Irish
Times arguing about the exact point at which human life begins, about foetuses and zygotes and the morning-after pill, Ireland was now producing women who were acceptable to long-haired men
wearing leather trousers, who had made millions out of heavy metal, and who were preparing to stride through the arenas of the United States along with their buddies, singing ‘Pour Some Sugar
On Me’.
    Yes, we have established that sometimes, Paddy can’t make it on his own. But here we are also establishing that there are a lot of folks out there who can’t make it without Paddy.
For a Joe Elliott, a season ticket to Bramall Lane and a grand house which used to belong to some Sheffield steel magnate might have its attractions, but there is also a lot to be said for quaffing
at the top table in the Pink Elephant after a session in the Dockers, that pub beside the Windmill Lane studios where I had kindly agreed to write Paul McGrath’s autobiography.
    And the excellence of the Windmill Lane Studios meant that these men, if they really felt the need, could lay down some tracks in a fully professional environment, before resuming the onerous
task of enjoying all the money they weren’t giving to the taxman, thanks to C.J. Haughey and his love of the arts.
    ——
    UB 40 needed no encouragement at all to come and to make sweet reggae music at the studio in which U 2 had made mega-platinum
albums, but it would become increasingly difficult for them to strike the work-life balance. Singer Ali Campbell would later quit drinking that red, red wine. He would also speak wisely about his
alcoholism, which had no doubt substantially ‘progressed’ during those happy times in the 1980s in Dublin town.
    And the visiting stars were always ably assisted in their endeavours by the local variety, of which there were now many. Every week it seemed that a few local boys had been signed up by a major
label, whose A&R men were swarming through the pubs of Dublin looking for the next U 2, talking a lot of shit and consuming fantastic quantities
of drink and drugs. George Byrne, whose inexhaustible passion for guitar-based American pop is matched only by a wintry eye for rock’s follies, would learn of bands who had slipped a copy of
their demo to some visiting record company potentate, along with a small gift of cocaine to help him make it through the night, but which would only ensure that he left the demo behind him in some
Leeson Street toilet and that all information pertaining to the band would have entirely vanished