As he was becoming immersed in Sinead's life and career, Fachtna

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Was finding his job at Mother more and more frustrating. Island Records had no motivation to work hard promoting one-off singles by bands who would then go and sign with other labels, even when the bands were as promising as Hothouse Flowers and Cactus World News. It began to gnaw at Fachtna that he had to deal with the frustrations of kids who would be discovered by a member of U2, promised a chance to make a record, and then pin all their hopes on Fachtna getting Island excited. What bugged him even more was that every step of every Mother project had to be approved by the convened U2. Singles that Fachtna felt should have been rushed out sat gathering dust while the jacket art chased the Joshua Tree tour around America, awaiting the day when U2 would sit down together, look at it, and sign off.

Fachtna shared his frustrations with Sinead. Then he shared them with the world. "Hot Press did their annual yearbook in Dublin," Fachtna explains, "and in the course of a long interview I was asked about U2 and Mother Records, and with my great honesty I said that basically I despised U2 and the music they made and what they represented. I didn't find this a contradiction, but some of them found it a major contradiction. I always thought they had the capacity to accept criticism or accept somebody disliking them or their music. Kilkenny was telling me, 'Oh, they're really upset by what you said.'

"Then Sinead gave an interview to a London magazine called i-D and described U2 as being, I think, 'bombastic.' I don't know whether it was the straw that broke the camel's back, but at the time they seemed to feel that this was part of some campaign by me against them. One thing led to another, it all escalated, and I got a letter from McGuinness some time in June saying, 'Thank you very much and bye-bye.' Which was fine as far as I was concerned, it wasn't the end of the world. Unfortu­nately the repercussions continued for a couple of years afterward. Sinead seemed to take up the cudgels on my behalf. It became some issue between her and them and it was all very messy and uncomfortable for everybody."

Sinead didn't just take up the cudgels; she took up the bazooka. As her first album was breaking, she blasted U2 from one end of the music press to the other, accusing them of hypocrisy, controlling the Dublin rock scene, and secretly owning Hot Press magazine, among other imagi­native indictments. Some close to U2 figured she was just looking for publicity, making her bones by attacking the big guys.

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"There were occasions when Sinead would meet up with Bono and ask him honestly to tell her what happened from their point of view." Fachtna sighs. "Then she would come back to me and say, 'I must talk to you, you've been lying to me. Bono says this, this, and this and you said this, this, and this,' and they'd be two completely different stories. There was all this kind of stupidity and confusion going on. She was backstage at some show they did at Wembley and Ossie Kilkenny shouted across to her, 'What the fuck are you doing here? How dare you turn up here after the things you've been saying?' And then she came back to me saying, 'Oh, they really hate me.' It was distressing enough for her that the night after she got back from Wembley, having spoken to Bono for some considerable length of time, she rang me at about seven o'clock the next morning and said, 'Are you definitely coming in today? It's something very serious I need to talk to you about.' And when I did go down to the studio, she said, 'Now I want you to be totally truthful with me. The stories you've been telling me about what happened between U2 and yourself are not correct, are they?' And I was thinking, What's going on here? 'Of course they're correct, Sinead. It's of no benefit to me to lie about U2. I couldn't care less really.'

"Then she said, 'Well, I sat down with Bono for a long time last night and he looked me straight in the eye and told me things different to what you had told me.' And my attitude was just, 'Sinead, all I know is that I know. I'm not asking you to believe me, but I have told you what I believe the truth to be. It's up to you to figure it out.' "

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