Dublin

We took our two older kids to the U2 concert in Dublin recently and it was quite an experience for them as well as us.
We took three different trains, which was really exciting for the first 20 minutes. After this the questions and the whinging were the soundtrack to the rest of our journey.
The lads, who are massive U2 fans themselves, were amazed as we wandered around a Dublin well and truly gripped by Bono fever. I guess they were surprised to find it wasn’t just them who thought Bono was as cool as God himself.
Momentarily they forgot about Michael Jackson, a figure they have been slightly obsessed with since his demise. I knew I would have to cut back my Sky News consumption when I heard Daniel explaining the whole Wacko Jacko story to his younger brother on the train.
“Michael Jackson, right, he was black but now he’s white,” he explains.
“How?” asked young Caolan.
“I don’t know, I think he might have washed his face with the bleach Mommy puts down the toilet. But then, right, he died and turned into a zombie. And now, when he walks down the street the path lights up, like even when he’s just going to the shop. And also since he turned into a zombie he’s a far better dancer. And as well as that he brings elephants back to life and can blow down trees.”
“Wow,”
I had worried that there might perhaps be a few better role models around than a disco dancing zombie with a high-pitched voice and a questionable lifestyle so I was glad when Bono and his gang came back into fashion.
The lads stayed with my brother and his wife in a ‘are we really ready for parenthood’ experiment. They are expecting their first child in a few months and this night was a test drive of sorts. The kids fleeced the couple, having them buy pizza they didn’t eat and rent movies they fell asleep half way through. The kids ate ice-cream past their bed time and threw up on the beautiful cream rug that adorns their plush living floor. They survived unscathed, the adults were a little bleary eyed and exhausted in the morning.
And as for us, we had a great time at the concert. The sight of four middle-aged men from north Dublin prancing and dancing about a stage brought cheer to many, not least Dublin’s hoteliers as well as roadside purveyors of silly pink cowboy hats.
We noticed that every shop, bar and restaurant within a 5-mile radius of Croke Park had their CDs on rotation. Bus and taxi drivers talked of nothing else. Dubliners lucky enough to be on the main route to Croker turned their houses into make-shift shops selling everything from €5 bottles of water to black and white photocopies of Bono in his trademark shades. It seemed everyone was out to make a few pounds off the already recession ravaged O’Neills.
And so there was warm beer and wet rain, packet trains and empty purses but Bono and the lads put on a good show, and if nothing else he reminded us all that new Ireland is still talented, still confident and still strong. The husband and I just need to borrow some of his boundless energy to help flame our own financial fortunes.