Born to Run?

Society always leads the way and then the law and the law-makers scramble to catch up, declares Bob Geldof. Back in 1990, Ireland looked around at itself with dismay. There was a New Ireland that didn t like how it was being represented to the wider world. Luckily, we were able to find a figurehead and a voice to personify the confidence of this whole new country that had sprung up almost out of nowhere.
The moment found the woman. Mary Robinson was the perfect person for the perfect time. And now, it s all there to be built upon.
The main party candidates for the Presidency are more nervous than a rattlesnake in a roomful of rocking chairs. Their smiles are so forced and brittle that you can see right through to the terror beneath. Deep down, these people realise that they, and the political class they represent, have never before been so fiercely unpopular in this country. The big cheeses have all curdled in their own backyard.
Meanwhile, through the hush-hush bush come murmurs about various non-party candidates being added to the ballot paper. Some of the nominee suggestions floating about are risible, others are just plain daft. Nevertheless, the view prevails that if the right persona could be hooked up with the right campaign, he or she could sock the punch-drunk political establishment with a sure-shot blow to its solar-plexus and score an instant KO. The keys to the Aras are there for the taking.
The name of Bob Geldof has ridden tall in much of this recent speculation. Having issued a categorical and characteristically vehement denial that he was actively seeking a nomination to Hot Press last issue ( That s fucking ridiculous. About the most fucking ridiculous thing I ve ever heard ), the former Boomtown Rat has kept his notorious gob shut on the issue ever since.
And yet, rumours persist that we could well be only weeks away from the inauguration of our first rock n roll Presidency. I am of Ireland, come pogo with me . . .
Today, however, Geldof doesn t even want to talk about the whispers linking himself with a potential Presidential candidature. Instead, the man who circled the planet, hurling charges, rebukes and seven barrels of shit at recalcitrant global-leaders during his mission to feed the world through Live Aid, has a simple quest; he merely wants to pay tribute to Mary Robinson, our former Head of State.
That he does so with considerable eloquence and passion is an interesting pointer in itself.
Bob Geldof and I are speaking only hours after Mary Robinson had signed her official seal of resignation and left @ras an Uachtarain for Geneva, an ordinary Irish citizen once again. Are you sorry to see her go? I ask.
Nah, I couldn t give a fuck, replies Geldof, with a mischievous guffaw. No, she was great for the country. Forget the flippancy. She brought a dignity and a grace and an elegance to the job and, through that, to the country. She stretched the terms of reference for the job and they should not be shrunk back again.
The election of a woman, in particular, marked a sense of maturity and confidence in the country. It gave notice of an end to the idea that this particular job is a sinecure for some superannuated politico who would get it through a combination of nudging and winkery, and then sit quietly in the Park through his political dotage.
It was of critical importance that Robinson was, for the first time, a President who was not a politician. She could articulate things greater than politics and still be trusted and listened to, because there was nothing in it for her. Politics is the art of the pragmatic. People say it s the art of the possible but it s also about a fundamental pragmatism. She was above that fray.
She acknowledged the weaker members of the community. She showed that these people were not disenfranchised. They may not see a political acknowledgement but that was not to say that they were not acknowledged or that they were completely disenfranchised. That sense of inclusiveness was hitherto unheard of. And that can be expanded upon.
You can talk about these rhetorical things that a country feels but that s not enough. As opposed to just articulating, Robinson could personify it, this young, new, confident, outward-looking, internationalist Ireland.
Geldof believes that Robinson s identification with the Diaspora was of crucial importance to the success of her tenure, especially in the teeth of ongoing IRA violence both at home and abroad.
At a time of continuing monstrosities and violence, that small, dark, backward-looking part of the national spirit was solidly rejected by this New Ireland, he argues. For those of us who were, in fact, part of that Diaspora, and were hanging our heads in shame with every new atrocity, we could point to Robinson and say, That s the Ireland we re part of. Not this other, sickening evil .
That was particularly true in London. You could say, Ireland is that. Not this other miserable, recidivist type of place . It worked very well for the Irish at home but she also completely changed the perception of Ireland among British people. Here was tremendous dignity. It wasn t all this fucking winking and Howiya lads! . She was somebody serious. Someone with bottom, if you know what I mean.
Did President Mary Robinson make Bob Geldof feel proud to be Irish? (pause) I m very loathe to say that there s a national pride in me. he avers. I am Irish. I ve never disputed it. I ve sung about it. I ve written about it. It s a fact of life. But I m not nationalistic. I am Irish and that s it. Clearly, I m a product of the place. I don t think I could ve come out of anywhere else.
But, at a time when you felt deep shame in a place and feared that people might mistake the Ireland that you were from for this thing that was being done supposedly in Ireland s name, I was proud to be able to point somewhere else, to the highest office in the land and say, No, people voted for her, a woman, a constitutional lawyer who articulates and personifies this other place . That was hugely important for those of us who lived outside the country.
Has Geldof considered moving back here to live in recent years?
It s certainly now an Ireland that I feel more comfortable with, he asserts. I ve written about how I never felt at home there. My home was there but I never felt at home there. The things I wanted to do, the things I was thinking and talking about were not the same as what my elders seemed to be thinking or taking about. So, I had to go away to express that. If I had been a generation later, perhaps I wouldn t have.
I went away and found that I was able to do those things elsewhere, the same as hundreds of thousands of Irish people in the past, and of my generation and of generations since. Of course, the generations since are highly educated, perhaps the most educated in Europe, and so they ve now become the ascendancy in cultures elsewhere. Like myself, I guess, in Britain. We re accepted.
I was at a breakfast for John Bruton, when he was Taoiseach, a couple of months ago, at the Grosvenor House Hotel, in Park Lane. I looked around the room and saw all these Irishmen, a lot of people of my generation and younger, and they were major players in Britain. My God, it s quite shocking, you know, when you see it.
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Bob Geldof contends that Mary Robinson was dead right in her (at the time) widely-denounced decision to publicly shake hands with Sinn Fiin leader, Gerry Adams, at a sensitive stage in the lead-up to the first IRA ceasefire.
Absolutely, he affirms. The peace process has moved forward now from a position of nationalist entrenchment. Again, right at this particular point, it s all there for the taking. She embraced the Unionists as part of an Irish tradition and, in so doing, she again showed what the Republic of Ireland feels towards these people who ve got a great and huge culture themselves and must be taken care of in any arrangement that comes out of this.
They must be listened to and their views must be totally and wholly respected. In order to do that, you have to also acknowlege the other forces in play at this point in history and that s what she was doing. As President of the Republic, she was obliged to do that.
Geldof also lauds Robinson s use of symbols, such as her celebrated lamp in the window of Aras an Uachtarain. Again, that sort of rhetorical metaphor or imagery could not be done by a politician. It could only be done by a President, by a Head of State, who was above politics, without it being seen as some cynical move.
She managed to make stuff like that not seem cynical. In the hands of someone less astute, it would ve been seen as crass. But the sincerity with which it was done was accepted. Not only that but she then went out and talked about these people. You have to remember that Ireland, uniquely, is a country where almost 50% of its history has taken place outside its frontiers. She recognised that this other Ireland is out there and continues to go out there. That was vital.
Geldof had close encounters with more than his fair share of Prime Ministers and Heads of State during the Band Aid/Live Aid years but he maintains that the role of Irish President, as re-defined by Mary Robinson, is now unrivalled on the world stage in terms of what he calls its moral capacity.
Nearly all Heads of State are political positions, he argues. If I met Presidents, it was because I could get something from them. You had serious players like Bush and Ted Kennedy and Tip O Neill I met them because I specifically needed the Irish lobby on my side. They all rallied round. I met them and had lunch and breakfast and stuff like that and clued them into where I was at, and they pushed for me so that I could meet others. Mitterrand was quite up for helping because, again, what I was doing was above politics. They could actually latch onto that and look good at the same time.
Whereas the Irish President, in the shape of Hillery, couldn t really do much for me except try to express in words the extraordinary outpouring of assistance that Ireland gave. I think they gave more pro rata than any other country on the planet, except Bermuda, bizarrely. But then again, Robinson took it one step further by acknowledging the work that the Irish had done in the past and were doing presently in the area of famine relief.
Geldof is unstinting in his praise of Robinson for her visits to Rwanda and Somalia. They were really important, he claims. Uniquely again, she was one of the few Heads of State that bothered their arses. She was able to go there in the clear knowledge that Goal did a lot of great work in Rwanda and Concern do unbelievably good work and are known for it. There s a lot of pushiness with the other agencies but Concern are very quiet; they go about it and get it done. You get a lot of these characters who are very hard nuts and they turn out to be priests or nuns, but you wouldn t know it. They re just there, that s them and they re doing their job.
There s an immense trust of the Irish in Africa. I know it sounds corny but it s true. They find the Irish very congenial, the Irish are a laugh and they can get on with them. Because it s a small country, Ireland can take moral positions that are the luxury of small nations. Big countries can t take moral positions without being whacked, viz Robin Cook s foreign policy. You can only go so far before billions of dollars worth of contracts are cancelled. Ireland has this incredible history of saving the western civilisation during the Dark Ages and it s still in a great position to have an impact.
Mary Robinson could move into this area with total authority. She could visit these places and focus attention almost on a supra-political level, without the populist overtones of, say, Princess Diana but still could focus on these things incredibly seriously. Having articulated the fact that the weaker members of Irish society were not disenfranchised, and her Presidency specifically spoke for them, she could expand that out to others disenfranchised in the global community.
Again, that is all there to be expanded upon. The ball shouldn t be let drop by whoever takes it up.
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Bob Geldof thinks he met President Mary Robinson only once, at a state dinner held in London in her honour some years ago. All I said to her was, Hello, good to see ya, well done , he recalls, with a self-deprecatory chortle at the banality of the exchange.
No previous Irish President had made any impact on him whatsoever, though he did meet Paddy Hillery during the Band Aid period.
A very nice man, Geldof observes. But when I asked him was he going to run again, he said, Are you joking? Seven more years of solitary? . That was it. He was largely a prisoner of his political past. Robinson made it into something more than just being stuck up in the Park, sleeping quietly through your dotage. That was never what it should have been. And she, being a constitutional lawyer, was able to push at the envelope.
Another reason why it seemed that her Presidency was so important was that it coincided with an Irish artistic renaissance. That was largely fostered through a series of governments but, with Michael D. Higgins as Minister for Culture, it really took off. He fostered this whole aspect of Ireland and the arts. He encouraged it and, being a poet himself, was able to understand where we could go artistically, with the past we had.
That was important and it wasn t coincidental that this artistic renaissance was essentially overseen by politicians who were in the arts themselves. And then, we ve also had the sporting renaissance as well. They all coincided and none of these things happened by accident, even though it may appear that they did. Luckily, there was someone there around whom it could all coalesce and someone who could personify and articulate that, someone like Mary Robinson.
Bob Geldof is justified in savouring a certain sense of proprietorial pride in the Irish artistic renaissance of which he speaks. It was, after all, the path originally beaten through the undergrowth by his band, The Boomtown Rats, during the late 70s that was eventually to become the road to success for a whole generation of Irish bands and musicians.
Phil Lynott, who preceded me, always referred to a mythical Ireland, reflects Geldof. Whereas I, in my impatience always referred to now, here and now, now, let s get on with it. I couldn t wait for this new revolution that I knew was coming in Ireland. I didn t want to hang around for it. Within a year of The Rats, came Hot Press and U2 and The Radiators and The Undertones but I couldn t wait for them. It was that desperate impatience that I had. I just didn t feel at home on the cusp of the old and the new.
I was desperately wanting change. I tried to get a music paper started. That was my first thing before the band. I was thwarted in that at every turn, by banks, by the trade unions, by business. I went to Conor Cruise O Brien to try and get help from the government and was thwarted there too. I started a band to expel my frustration. But I felt change coming. I could taste it in the air. I tried to articulate it but I wanted it now. And then it came. It came in this great flood.
This huge artistic renaissance began perhaps at the turn of the century but has only recently surged into this vast outpouring of cultural importance that belies our size as a country. We ve produced probably the greatest rock band, and the Nobel laureate poet. And I know this sounds pony coming from me but Riverdance has had this amazing cultural impact, at another level totally to Heaney or U2 or Jim Sheridan.
It was immensely successful at a very street level, like an immensely successful Broadway spectacular. The growth in interest in Irish dance and, through that, in Irish music, is phenomenal. I may not have personally enjoyed Riverdance particularly but I understood where it was coming from. Van Morrison is a key point in this. His constant reference back to a marriage of the blues and Celtic music has had a huge impact on the way people perceive the country. The world knows Ireland through its music.
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If there is a model for how the Irish Presidency should develop in the future, Bob Geldof see it in the Czech Republic, under the Presidency of poet and playwright Vaclav Havel.
There s a tiny country but here s this great moral force, this great artistic force, and he uses it very well to forward the cause of Eastern Europe, Geldof proclaims. Havel is very different from (Lech) Walesa who represented a political Presidency in the Mitterrand mould and who lost his moral authority. If he had been a politically disinterested president, like Robinson, like Havel, then he would have made the State adhere around him which it hasn t done though maybe that s all to the good, in the case of Poland.
But Czechoslovakia split up and yet the Czech Republic, without really having an industrial hinterland, was allowed to move forward because Havel was able to posit a forward motion and posit a moral authority. He was able to stop the destruction of Prague. I remember being there and the West had already moved in. They were trying to knock everything down to build Hiltons and Holiday Inns and McDonalds. He refused to let that happen.
Though he had no political power, he set the moral tone. He said, No, our country suffered for 50 years, no more! We re moving forward with a reference to the past but as a highly modern, forward-looking country .
Geldof is also greatly enthused by the manner in which Havel has managed to combine the roles of President and practising artist. Being Head of State didn t stop him writing his poems and doing poetry readings and having his plays staged, effuses Bob. He still did that because he said, This is what I do . And he did have a dinner for Frank Zappa and The Rolling Stones and he did have a dinner for Mitterrand or Thatcher or Robinson because the two worlds are not necessarily exclusive. He was able to do that because, again, he was above the political fray.
Does Geldof believe that the Irish Presidency could evolve along the lines he has outlined under, let s say (oh, I dunno), President Albert Reynolds?
I won t get into individual figures but I ve already articulated what I think the Presidency can be, retorts Bob. I don t believe the job should be a sinecure for superannuated politicos in search of a comfortable place to sleep off their political dotage. I don t think Ireland wants that anymore.
I think Ireland is never going to look back now from that great coherent moment of maturity where it understood that this could be a thing that was special. It really stamped it home by electing a woman. Since then, we ve had laws that make us part of the international community and we ve had artistic successes which, once again, confirm Ireland s importance in the artistic stratosphere of the world.
Mary Robinson s greatest gift is that the job is now a proper job. It s there to be moulded and shaped and expanded upon by whoever s the next occupant. I don t think it can ever go back to being a retirement home. It s too important.
In the aftermath of the death of Princess Diana, Bob Geldof excoriated the British tabloid press for what he saw as their complicity in her fate. He views it as a sign of the maturity of the Irish people that the media here respected the privacy of Mary Robinson s family during her term in the Park.
I think that s less her and more the Irish themselves, he reflects. The press in Ireland are far more European than the English press. The English press are dominated by proprietors who have an agenda, no matter what they say. They re disembodied culturally. Largely, they re amoral figures. They will swap and change nationalities for the buck. That s what drives them. They like playing power games and, unfortunately, British politicians pander to them, unnecessarily in my view. I don t think the Irish are particularly interested in that sort of guff.
Being President isn t a high-profile job in the sense of being like a monarchy, and God bless it for that. People understand that the woman was the job, and the job was President. Nick Robinson handled it very well. The children handled it very well and they were left well alone, as should be the case. The children aren t the President, the husband wasn t the President. The people voted for Mary Robinson and that s what we got and we got it in spades. The country didn t let her down and she didn t let the country down.
As far Geldof is concerned, it is critically important that the next President be elected by the people rather than imposed as an agreed choice by the political parties.
Ireland is not any longer a banana republic, he says. It is a mature democracy. The next President should be, like Robinson, a people s President and should reflect the New Ireland. There s plenty of places that Ireland can go from here. Mary, and enlightened politicians like Michael D., enlightened artists and enlightened businessmen have set Ireland up for the next century. Now, it s all for the taking.
So, who would Bob Geldof like to see dance in Mary Robinson s footsteps?
Someone who can enlarge and expand upon what Mary Robinson has stamped out as being the job, he asserts. The spirit of the individual is very important. Crucial. With Robinson, you always felt the person behind the President. That s a very hard trick to pull off.
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When Bob Geldof first heard about the trouble U2 were having with the staging of last month s PopMart concerts at Lansdowne Road, he thought he was having some sort of flashback. I went, Fuckin hell, deja-vu! he recounts with a rueful cackle.
Geldof has been down this dreary cul-de-sac before. Back in the summer of 1979, he and the Boomtown Rats were the returning heroes. The previous year had seen The Rats sweep the world with the number one singles Rat Trap and I Don t Like Mondays . A triumphant Irish homecoming concert was scheduled for Leopardstown Racecourse and tickets were selling like hot cakes. However, in what has now become a tiresome ritual, the local residents started to object and lobbied vociferously to have the gig cancelled.
Geldof was the Antichrist as far as much of Middle Ireland was concerned. He was widely regarded as a disgrace to the country at home and an offence to our good national name abroad. Banning this wretched little concert of his was seen as a perfect opportunity to soften his diabolical cough.
In the end, we had to secretly construct a gig and only announce it 24 hours beforehand, Geldof recalls. The great thing was that all the state broadcasters got behind us. Here was a media that was way ahead of the legislature and the political status quo. And, of course, the Church who were fulminating against me, at the time, from pulpits. It was the media who were in tune with the people.
The media announced the gig in the early hours and told people how to get there. 20,000 people from all over the country showed up at this private house (Leixlip Castle) with only 24 hours notice. We had students manning the security and digging the bogs and all that. For me, it was a critical moment in what was happening in this country.
It was a moment when the old guard seemed to shift. They bowed down in the face of this; this other generation were here now and they wanted to see this thing happen and they wanted to welcome one of their crowd home, from the Diaspora if you like.
Out of the experience came Geldof s song Banana Republic , a bitter polemic aimed at this dingy nation of police and priests, forty shades of green (and) sixty shades of red.
The song was a huge hit, says Geldof. It was number three in Britain, number one in Germany. It seemed to strike a chord not just in Ireland but elsewhere. I may be putting too much on this song but it seemed to be giving voice to the way a lot of people were feeling.
Ireland is out of that awful morass. There s an understanding of where Ireland is now. With the last two Taoiseachs, Bruton and Ahern, you ve had people who are of an age where they remember the past but who were probably part of the generation that wanted to shift forward. A lot of that is to do with being part of a greater Europe.
For years, we were isolated on the fringes of the western shores of Europe. For years, we were in the thrall of a much greater economy. Through Europe, we were able to find a voice. Through Europe, we were able to get the money to build up an infrastructure that allowed us to communicate on par with the rest of the world.
Because we weren t an industrially structured country, we were able to bypass the capital industries of old and to go straight for new industries, like financial services, artistic industries like movies and television and now micro-electronic industries. Money came into the country and, out of that, you were able to build this New Ireland that was reflected in the cultural renaissance and, ultimately, in the Presidency.
Am I to take it, then, that Bob Geldof won t be performing Banana Republic live any more?
I will do the song cause I love the song, he chuckles. If you scan the words, it s pretty accurate. Striking up a soldier s song, I know that tune/It begs too many questions but it answers to Banana Republic . I think that s pretty much it. I wonder do you wonder, sleeping with your whore/Sharing beds with history is like licking running sores . I think that s true. It s very strong on imagery but there was suddenly an understanding back then that history is a whore and people said, I m not going to get into bed with them any more .
I think that all the monstrosities and evil that were perpetrated globally, in history s name, throughout Robinson s Presidency were utterly rejected by the people of Ireland and utterly rejected by her and utterly rejected, finally, by an electorate that forced the talks in Northern Ireland today. I think I was right at the time. It was a long time ago but I think I got it right, you know, and I m not ashamed of it in any sense. It s a great fucking song. n