The late, great Alexander Cockburn used to ask his interns and acolytes, ‘Is your hate pure?’ I wasn’t either of those things, exactly, but he asked me anyway. I doubted his seriousness, as I also doubted the purity of any aspect of my being. (Or of his, for that matter.) I couldn’t say Yes, and I hope it was just a long-running joke, because otherwise he might have been sorely disappointed with me and with this book, which is not animated by hatred, pure or otherwise, of its subject. Like all the work I’ve ever done as a journalist it was, however, animated by him, and it was my great good fortune that in the last decade he helped to bring that work to a wider audience.
Although I cannot repay Alexander, I hope I may find some way to thank his fine friend and co-editor at CounterPunch, Jeffrey St Clair, to whom this book owes its very existence, as well as its rocking short title. The magical CounterPunch chain of acquaintance also found me linked with another of my animating heroes, Dave Marsh, whose excellent writings on Bono have all-too-obviously been an inspiration for these pages, and whose conversations on- and offline always make me think deeper.
Beside Jeff and Dave, at the top of the list of people who might have done this book better is my extraordinary friend Andy Storey, who over the decades has freely shared with me his deep analytical expertise on Africa, economics, music, and even Bono. (His thoughts on football and films haven’t made the cut this time.) In countless sessions he made the Swan bar in Aungier Street my classroom, and he is directly responsible for a significant chunk of the bibliography and several crucial improvements in this text. The errors are of course all my own, but I would never have been smart enough to make them without him.
Margaret Kelleher was responsible in another way, offering her empty home and the company of her beautiful cat Shelley when a deadline threatened and a writing retreat was needed. The book’s back was broken under her print of a sixteenth-century map, ‘Africae Tabula Nova’, a welcome reminder of the long history of European efforts to inscribe meanings on that continent.
I am grateful to numerous librarians, in my home institution the Dublin Institute of Technology, in Trinity College Dublin and in the Dublin public library system, who made my research easier. Paddy Prendeville of Phoenix magazine was a guide to that fine and dangerous publication’s daunting print and digital archives, and was also one of the many, many people around Ireland who, either at my request or simply on hearing of my topic, launched fascinating, insightful, provocative conversations. Many of them will recognise their insights, and I hope they do not mind the borrowing. Most of them would probably prefer to go unnamed, but particular thanks must go to scholar Sean Dunne, who offered formidable ideas and a great graffiti sighting. Also special thanks to the vegetable-seller who mentioned the South Park episode about Bono!
A book that is not in my notes but which was nonetheless useful is Nathan Jackson’s Bono’s Politics: The Future of Celebrity Political Activism, self-published in 2008 and with its text available free at bonospolitics.com. Jackson might not relish the mention, since his views and conclusions are so different from my own, but his book is a clear, thorough presentation of what might be called the case for the defence.
At Verso, I am indebted to Andy Hsaio for showing the confidence to commission this from me, and to Audrea Lim for her extraordinarily valuable editorial input, which was friendly but challenging, thorough and thought-provoking. Similar thanks and praise are due to a wise and sympathetic copy-editor, Charles Peyton.
My brilliant eldest daughter Louisa was the first I heard enunciate clearly the Irish reaction to Bono’s tax controversy a few years back. ‘No one can stand him anyway – this just gives us a reason for how we already felt.’ Even allowing for exaggerated teenage certitude, the thoughts of her and her equally brilliant sister Cara have been enormously treasured, and their company too.
I think my youngest, Stella, has particularly enjoyed speaking the phrase, ‘so you can work on your Bono-book’. I look forward with pleasure to her next phrase, and my next excuse. Her mother, my wife Catherine Ann Cullen, has for more than ten years been the best of all possible companions, interlocutors, editors, exemplars. She is inspiring and strengthening, and a helluva lotta fun. I can scarcely conceive of this work, or anything else, without her.