Tag Archives: U2

THE world’s top band U2, is among those to come on board to fund a cargo plane of personal protection equipment (PPE) being brought from China to Ireland by Ennis man Dómhnal Slattery. Avolon, the aircraft leasing company owned by Mr Slattery, landed flight MSN 396 with a full consignment PPE at Dublin Airport last week. The A330 aircraft contained 40 ventilators, 1.1m exam gloves, 250,000 surgical masks, 60,000 medical goggles and 20,000 medical face shields. “We are confident the medical supplies as sourced by the HSE, PCH and Avolon are of the highest quality available and contain the CE marking,” said Mr Slattery. The well-known businessman gave a commitment to do even more in the fight against the Coronavirus pandemic. It has emerged that Bono, the Edge, Adam and Larry are among the individuals involved with Avolon on this project. U2 have committed €10m to the project and they have purchased the PPE that Avolon will fly from China …

THE heyday of vinyl is well past, having been overtaken many times – by cassettes, themselves long antiquated; CDs, downloads and streaming. While there is no doubt that both collecting and listening to the old-style records is now a niche interest, it’s a niche that isn’t without its devotees and apparently the numbers of fans of vinyl are actually going up. Sinéad Nic Síoda is running the Record Break Café in Ennis and in her store she stocks vinyl from stars of decades gone by but, surprisingly, there are also very recent releases. For example, U2’s most recent album, Songs of Innocence, which was controversially released on iTunes last September, is there on vinyl, while for the not insignificant sum of €300 you can buy a limited edition collection of all Eminem’s work. Slim Shady on vinyl, who’d have thought it? There is little problem getting new records, Sinead says, and she believes there is more interest in them now. …