ME and U2

A recollection by John Bender.

Would you like to meet The Edge? It was 1987 and I was backstage at the U2 Love Comes to Town Tour. And here I was just about to meet The Edge. It all started about the same time as I had the crazy idea to put a group together to apply for the first commercial FM radio station in Hobart and indeed Tasmania. I had no experience in radio but that didnt seem to deter me at the time. What was I thinking? Somehow I managed to get Austereo, the number one FM network in Australia involved and I believe that combined with the application was the only reason I almost got U2 to include Tasmania on their national tour of Australia. The fact that I failed and have given away the ending of this story is inconsequential to the real story I uncovered. I had become obsessed with U2 sometime during the mid 1980s and it was the Rattle and Hum album which was the catalyst for my dream of U2 including Tasmania on their tour schedule. And the reason for this was that The Edge had written a song called Van Diemens Land on the album. For those of you who dont know, Van Diemens Land was the original name for Tasmania. Printed on the album sleeve under the title Van Diemens Land were the words, dedicated to the Fenian, John Boyle OReilly. I decided to do some research into The Edges inspiration for this song. Off to the state library I went with the idea of researching John Boyle OReilly and the reasons he would have been transported to Van Diemans Land as a convict. Now this was 1987, and the internet wasnt a big thing back then. The assistant at the library pointed me towards the microfiche.remember that stuff? For hours I perused all the microfiche in the library relating to convicts transported to Tasmania, but no sign of John Boyle OReilly. Frustrated I decided to give up thinking The Edge must have made all of this up. On the way out I had a thought. I decided to see if there were any books about Fenians in Australia. Sure enough, there was a book entitled The Fenians in Australia, and there was a whole chapter on John Boyle OReilly. Just to give some background, a Fenian was another name for a member of The Irish Republican Brotherhood. They were a secret society of rebels dedicated to an armed uprising against British rule. In 1865 OReilly joined the Fenians and started recruiting members. This put the wind up the English and during a number of raids a large number of Fenians, including OReilly were arrested. For his trouble the English eventually (before serving two years in an English prison), decided to transport him to Australia. This is where the story gets interesting as

OReilly was not transported to Van Diemans Land but to Fremantle in Western Australia! After arriving in January 1868, OReilly was locked up in Fremantle Prison but within a month was sent to Bunbury and assigned with other convicts to help build the Bunbury-Vasse road. During this time OReilly managed to save a giant Mahogany tree. OReilly had noted that the road surveyors had marked the tree to come down. He pleaded with the warden to postpone the destruction of the tree until he could make his case to the chief warden at Bunbury. The official was so amused at OReillys request that he told his wife who eventually intervened. The road was thus built around the tree which eventually became known as OReillys tree. Amazingly it stood till 1953 when it was cut down leaving a stump 5 feet in diameter. OReilly quickly built up a relationship with the warden and was appointed a probationary convict constable. He became the main contact between the warden and his family as he was often sent as a messenger between the work camp and the prison and was a regular visitor to the wardens family home. In fact at some stage he began a romantic liaison with the wardens daughter. OReilly was an amateur poet and the liaison was discovered when one of his poems turned up. This nearly ended in OReillys death as he attempted suicide only to be saved by a fellow convict. OReilly eventually escaped with the help of an Irish priest who organised for an American whaling ship to pick him up off the Western Australian coast. He was to row out to the ship but in the first instance the captain of the ship reneged and OReilly had to wait until the priest could organise another ship. Two weeks later OReilly along with another convict who had blackmailed the conspirators rowed three miles out to sea where they were picked up by another whaler. The ship had to be diverted and ended up at Mauritius which was a British Colony. The police came aboard as they had been tipped off that there was an escaped convict on board. The ships captain gave up the blackmailer and denied OReilly was on board. Two more ship transfers and OReilly arrived in Philadelphia in November 1869 and was welcomed by the Irish compatriots in that City. OReilly eventually gave up his extremist views and instead believed Ireland could achieve independence through raising their self esteem and view of themselves in the world. OReilly went on to become the editor of The Pilot a Boston newspaper. He also became a prolific poet and novelist. In fact he was said to be John F Kennedys favourite poet. He even organised a successful escape for six Fenians who were still imprisoned in Fremantle by way of purchasing a whaling vessel to aid in the escape. OReilly eventually took his own life in 1890 by taking an overdose of his wifes sleeping tablets. Having now done all this research and having discovered the potentially embarrassing fact that OReilly hadnt been transported to Van Diemans Land; I decided to purchase a copy of the book and sent it to Principal Management in Windmill Lane Dublin, the home of U2s management. I also sent a long fax outlining my request and what a good idea it would be if U2 came to Tasmania. I

even suggested if they couldnt make a full scale gig at our local entertainment centre maybe they could do a scaled down unplugged gig at Port Arthur, where the remains of Tasmanias penal colony still stand. Much to my surprise a few days later I received a fax back saying that they has acknowledged my fax. Not much of a response but a response none the less. Encouraged by this I purchased a book on Tasmania and sent it off. I composed another fax and explained that there was a top class recording facility at the ABC and Im sure they could use it if inspiration took over and they wanted to record.

Knowing they had an environmental bent I even recruited the Wilderness Society to see if they could send a request as well. This was somewhat ironical as my family had had a previous run in with the Wilderness Society and were basically diametrically opposed to everything they stood for. But hell, this was U2! Recollection also records me actually ringing up U2s tour manager, Dennis Sheehan late one night and having a long conversation with him on why the boys should come to Tassie. Dennis had been their tour manager since 1982 and had previously worked for Led Zeppelin. I recently looked him up on the net and discovered he has now been in the industry for 40 years. After a few more faxes back and forth, the promoter informed me that no, the band would not be coming to Tassie but if you would like to come to Melbourne for one of their gigs they will organise a back stage pass. I duly attended two of their concerts in Melbourne, (they had an extended run as this was before the big stadium extravaganzas) and went backstage after the first one. This is where the story comes full circle and after some time waiting to greet the Edge I was informed he was too tired from the performance to see me. Perhaps he was too embarrassed after his mistake about Van Diemans Land. As a consolation I got to meet and have a nice conversation with the 5th member of the band, their manager since they were in school, Paul McGuiness. Apparently the band split all profits five ways to include Paul. His first comment to me was so youre the guy who nearly wore out our fax machine! And yes they did discuss coming to Tassie after my requests but unfortunately couldnt fit it in to the schedule. So there you have it, so near but so far. But I did have the satisfaction of being acknowledged by Paul McGuiness and discovering a fantastic tale of a Fenian and his amazing life.