The day I almost knew Bono.

Every Irish person you ever meet will have a U2 story and usually the person telling the story either knows someone who knows Bono/has met Bono/saw U2 perform before they were U2. My godfather, for example, swears that he was at the famous Community Centre gig in Howth back in 1978 when one of the band members left band mid-gig and Bono announced that the band had now changed it's name from The Hype to U2. Personally I reckon half of Ireland was at that gig if you believe all the stories...

Anyway, I too have a U2 story, part Irish as I am and once upon a time I almost knew Bono. This is how it happend.

In November 2004 I went to Dublin with a friend for a long weekend holiday. One day we went out to Killiney, a Dublin suburb by the beautiful Killiney Bay. My greatgrandfather had a big house there, my grandfather grew up there and my father and uncle went to boarding school in nearby Dalkey and stayed in Killiney during the holidays. My dad always told me about this fantastic garden they had there, boarding on to the beach, so I wanted to take the chance and go and find this house and have a look.


So we went out there and found our way down to the road closes to the beach. After a while we came to a large white house, just like the one my dad described, with a huge garden and a small pathway leading down from the mainroad, along the high brick wall of the garden, under the railwayline and on to the beach. This was it, it was just as dad had described it!

The plan was to knock on the door of the house, explain the visit and politly ask if it was ok to take some photos of the house. The problem was the house was surrounded by that high brick wall and the only way in was through a HUGE black solid gate which looked somewhat intimidating. There was no door bell in sight and the only thing on the wall was a small surveilance camera. No hope of getting in, the place looked like a fortress.

So we went down the pathway down to the beach and took some photos of the house from there. An old man was walking his dog and I went over and asked him if he knew anything about the house and if he recognised the name of my grandpa. He did recognise the name and his reply to my question about the house was "That white house there, why that belongs to that Bono" (all said in a very thick Irish accent).

At the prospect of being able to claim such close connections with Bono we rushed up the pathway again and had a closer look at all the graffiti on the wall. And it was full of scribbled messages Bono and U2 from fans who had come here from all around the world. It was pretty cool to think that my dad had grown up in the house where Bono now lived with his family. And with The Edge living just down the road!

And that's what I thought for about a week untill I got back home and sent the photos over to my dad. It turned out that the house we saw wasn't my grandpas old house. It was very similar to it and my dad used to know the boy who did live there and had actually been to parties there but still, not as cool as actually growing up there. My family's house was actually on that same street but a bit further down towards the railway station. With a bit of luck, maybe it's The Edge who lives there now days, I'll find out the next time I go to Dublin.

/Mel