And reexamine ourselves and reevaluate ourselves, our thoughts, our politics and opinions and how we deal with other people.

"My perspective on U2 or for that fact any creative person who comes out of Ireland is that I'm baffled that nobody writes about what's going on there. I'm completely, utterly, and totally baffled that none of the so-called superstars that have come from Ireland have addressed the issue in any way other than in a kind of a bland, platitudinous Peace, man. We all want peace! But let's take the next step. How are we going to go about it? That's the problem I have, and the way I've articulated it in the past may have been incorrect or offensive to those on the receiving end of it. I don't want to offend anybody, but it's so hard to express the Republican point of view in Ireland and in Britain when there's an avalanche of the anti-Republican point of view. It's very hard not to get angry and feel that people are exploiting a situation or are turning a blind eye to the truth.

"Somehow or another we've maneuvered ourselves into a position whereby we can live with the fact that there is murder and mayhem going on up the road but it's not affecting us directly so we're okay. We look outward to the rest of the world rather than inward to our own heart and soul. It's not just the English who have to learn an awful lot more about Ireland, it's the Irish themselves. Over the last ten years or so, through Sinead and Van Morrison and Bono and other artists, this whole thing has grown about the mystical strange land that is Ireland. It's dangerously close to becoming a Walt Disney fantasy about roots, nature, literature, and spirits. It's like our grandparents' rosy, misty picture of Ireland with leprechauns and saints and scholars, this mytho­logical place that exists on the fringes of Western Europe. It's not like that, obviously.

"In the last thirty years Ireland's been turned into a Third World country and economy. We provide slave labor for multinational compa­nies who come in with huge government grants, big tax breaks, and then leave with their profits. And where are the young voices that are talking about these things?

"It's far too complex an issue for anybody, whether pop star or politician, to treat lightly. There are people dying left, right, and center, being assassinated, whether by gangs who are funded by the British Government or gangs operated by the IRA. One way or another there are people dying all the time and it's too easy an option to turn around

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and say the IRA are fascists or the British government are wrong or whatever. We can have all those opinions, but then it's, 'Okay, that's what you believe in. Now, what are we going to do about it?' And that's how we look forward rather than just name calling. It's too easy to condemn. We've had twenty-five years of condemnation and not one life has been saved as a result of it. I think it's time we dealt with reality as opposed to the self-gratification of turning around and just condemn­ing people. And that's the problem I have in a nutshell. Plus I don't like their music, either."

He thinks about it and then declares, "I think I hate them far more than they would hate me. They have more important things on their mind than thinking about me. Whereas I have little to amuse me."

Let's throw a hand grenade into Mrs. Murphy's chowder. Let's go ask Larry, "Has U2 deliberately avoided making statements about the Irish political situation?"

"It's something that we've been criticized for," Larry says as if he doesn't understand why. "That's such a complex issue that to get politi­cally involved is actually not right. However, Bono has always stood up, has been quoted on several occasions, saying violence is not the way. We've always said violence is not the answer, it's not going to solve anything. And Bono's reaction in Rattle and Hum ("Fuck the revolution.'") was the biggest political statement you could make! There's no chance we're ever going to get involved in party politics. That is not what we are. We're not good at that. We are able to stand up and make a social statement that killing people is not the way to solve anything, be that the IRA, the PLO or whoever it is. We've never been silent on those issues."

"That will not satisfy the people who say Belfast is an occupied country," I tell him, "and to say peace to people in an occupied country is to tell them to accept being conquered."

"That's such a load of absolute bollocks!" Larry says. "I've never heard such crap in all my life! People in Northern Ireland who are striving for peace, people like John Hume, have never talked about using violence! He never said, 'How can you sit back and let the British do this to us and not take up arms!' He's never done that. Ever. So that's just complete rubbish."

"Fachtna O'Ceallaigh says U2 will not speak out against the British oppression," I say.

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"That's just what I would expect from Factna O'Ceallaigh," Larry sneers.

After Sinead and Fachtna split (a breakup that inspired much of her album I Do Not Want What I Haven't Cot) she began trying to reconcile with U2. That was fine with Bono. I can't summarize the band's feelings about Sinead now, because I don't think the four band members are of one mind (or, to be fair, spend a lot of time thinking about her), but I reckon if you averaged out their opinions you'd come up with the diagnosis that Sinead is (a) something of a kook and (b) conscious of her ability to manipulate people and the press. "I will take a heart of flesh over a heart of stone," Bono says of Sinead. "People boo her because they can see how she manipulates people. A part of me will always love her. She knows that and will use it to manipulate me. She's like a child in that way."

My own feelings are a little different (maybe I've been manipulated). I suspect that Sinead is one of those people who explores everything, converts to a new idea quickly, proselytizes for her new idea like crazy, and then gets disillusioned and rejects it and moves on to something new. John Lennon was like that, and Lennon had a special gift for conveying his sincerity even as he contradicted himself and acted like a public fool. Maybe because he was so honest about everything he was going through, Lennon's audience treated him like a pal you make excuses for, rather than like a celebrity who's disillusioned them. Len­non's fans gave him tremendous leeway because he worked so hard to avoid illusioninp them in the first place.

Sinead is like Lennon in that she believes passionately in what she's saying at the moment, but does not cling to any belief past the point where she sees something that contradicts it. I think she is in that respect a pure soul, which makes her a valuable artist.

Since her second album, I Do Not Want . . . went to number one and sold six million copies, Sinead has been in a tough spot. She was involved in a number of public controversies that made her millions of enemies among the sort of people who call in to radio talk shows. She refused to go onstage in New Jersey if the U.S. national anthem were played. That got her branded anti-American and led to Frank Sinatra threatening to kick her ass. She walked off the TV show Saturday Night Live because it was being hosted by Andrew Dice Clay, a comedian she accused of misogynism. She agreed to return to the show later, promis-

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ing no bad behavior, and came out and tore up a photo of the pope. She said in a Rolling Stone interview that the woman raped by heavyweight champion Mike Tyson was a bitch who should have just shut up about it. Within a week of the last two incidents she went onstage at Madison Square Garden at a televised Bob Dylan tribute and was booed off. She perhaps encouraged the booing by refusing to begin her song. As the follow-up to I Do Not Want . . . she released an album of standards such as "Don't Cry for Me, Argentina" performed with an orchestra, which flopped. Maybe it was easier to offer that to all the people waiting for her to fail than if she'd given them an album of her own songs.

Apparently just after we last saw her—at the MTV awards in L.A.— Sinead went back to the hotel room and took an overdose of sleeping pills. Peter Gabriel found her in time to call for help. If it was a genuine suicide attempt or a cry for help is something I doubt even Sinead knows. Lately she's been lying low, sometimes showing up to sing with other people but neither recording nor performing under her own name. There is considerable nervousness at STS about how her session for "In the Name of the Father" will go . Gavin had to fight to use her, as some of the film's financial backers claimed that any association with Sinead would hurt the movie in America. The fact that it is now Thursday night and the music is due by Saturday does not lighten the load.

When I arrive at the studio's dining room I feel like I've entered a combat hospital. The crew are all sitting on couches looking shell-shocked, like they don't want to go back upstairs. The door opens and Bono and Eno step out. Bono looks completely wasted. Exhaustion lines are running across his face. "It's really something," he says. "It's good you're here. Go up and listen."

I ascend the stairs a little spooked by the psychic fallout. But Sinead's waiting at the top smiling. She gives me a hug and invites me in. Maybe I'm being manipulated, but I figure that most of the anxiety people like the crew downstairs bring to dealing with Sinead is provided by their expectations, not by her behavior.

Not that I can't see how she freaked them out. The room is illumi­nated only by candles and she is singing to a doll (smiling at her on the other side of the microphone), which she introduces as "Sinead." As soon as she arrived she unnerved the already jumpy crew by unpacking the candles, setting up a vase of flowers, ordering the lights off, and introducing them to her doll. She knows how to spook those supersti-

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