Latest U2 News / Sightings

Adam Clayton’s housekeeper faces 184 counts of theft

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Adam Clayton outside the court yesterday

By Allison Bray
Thursday May 03 2012

THE former housekeeper of U2 star Adam Clayton is facing charges of misappropriating cash from his bank account.

Carol Hawkins (47), of Crannagh Road, Rathfarnham, Co Dublin, has been charged with 184 counts of theft under the Criminal Justice (Theft and Fraud Offences) Act 2001.

She was due to begin her trial yesterday. However, the case was adjourned and prosecuting attorney Colm O Briain made an application for a further mention to set a trial date.

It is alleged that the former PA and housekeeper stole various sums of money from Mr Clayton's bank accounts between 2005 and 2008.

She was charged with the offences in January 2011.

Ms Hawkins was served with a three-volume book of evidence at another court appearance on February 28, 2011, when she was sent forward for trial.

She was remanded on bail pending the jury trial.

Mr Clayton was present in Dublin Circuit Criminal Court yesterday, but didn't stand out as the leather-clad rock star that fans would recognise.

He was wearing a shiny blue suit and clashing black tie -- despite being worth tens of millions, his jacket and trousers didn't appear to quite match.

Last week U2 were elevated to number five in the list of Britain and Ireland's richest musicians.

Bono, the Edge, Larry Mullen, Mr Clayton and their manager have a combined fortune of €628m according to the 'Sunday Times' Rich List.

By the end of their recent global shows in front of a combined seven million fans, the band had set records for the highest-grossing concert tour with $736m (€580m).

- Allison Bray

Bono recalls le Brocquy as an unforgettable mentor

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U2's Bono and his wife Ali

By Ken Sweeney Entertainment Editor
Monday April 30 2012

U2 SINGER Bono yesterday spoke about his decades-long friendship with the late artist Louis le Brocquy.

Bono attended a memorial service for the painter in St Patrick's Cathedral last Saturday.

Yesterday, he fondly remembered the "walks, dinners and lunches" he shared with the artist, who called him an "old friend".

He also told how he had got a "bit of a fright" when the painter captured his likeness as a "big exploding head", and how, as a favour to Bono, he once passed on an autographed copy of U2's 'The Unforgettable Fire' album to his friend, Samuel Beckett.

"He was a kind of mentor to young artists. The fact that myself and Edge weren't painters didn't preclude us. He let us in, and Anne (le Brocquy's wife, the artist Anne Madden) as well. They were great educators," Bono said on RTE radio.

The frontman recounted how himself and his best friend, the artist Guggi, had attended exhibitions by le Brocquy as teenagers.

"Myself and Guggi used to go and see his work in our early teens. We couldn't believe it. We would stop and stare and try but we couldn't figure it out. We knew there was something going on and it was worth trying to understand, and these were these paintings of heads . . . That's when it started for us, the fascination."

His friendship with the painter began in his mid-20s when Bono "didn't know much about the world but he (Louis) seemed to know it all.

"He managed to slow down the molecules in everyone else. He spoke so calmly and everyone wanted that stillness. I am a much more kinetic and anarchic personality, so I was very attracted to that. Edge is a bit like him," he said.

The artist was to paint Bono on at least two occasions. One likeness, unveiled in 2003, now resides in the National Gallery.

"If you are a famous person, people just look at you. He seemed to look at the other you," Bono said.

"He was keen on meeting who you really were, and so when I saw that big painting of me in the National (Gallery), that was a bit of a fright. It was a big exploding head. I was thinking, I'm not sure I know where to put that head. It was a strange feeling, to be the subject of one of those paintings, and overwhelming,"he said.

The 51-year-old revealed how le Brocquy indulged him by talking about his friends Samuel Beckett and Francis Bacon.

"I used to bother him all the time about various characters like Samuel Beckett. 'What's he like,' I'd ask him. And he said, 'I should tell Sam about your work,' and I said, 'Really, would you do that?' So in about 1984 I signed a copy of U2's album 'The Unforgettable Fire' and I gave it to him. He told me Sam likes to know what is going on in Dublin, in music and film and everything like that."

- Ken Sweeney Entertainment Editor

Originally posted by Ali709:Glad to see Adam looking good and healthy...Bono on the other hand...

Originally posted by Genaro92U2:[..]

Bono looks old whenever he's not onstage imo LOL

Originally posted by Genaro92U2:[..]

Bono looks old whenever he's not onstage imo LOL

Originally posted by PiM1975:Bono joined Glen Hansard at surprise gig at Living Room New Ork City last night. Check out the video of 'The Auld Triangle'