U2 concert announcement `misunderstanding'

A misunderstanding led to the incorrect announcement that U2 would play a free concert in Dublin in the spring, the Lord Mayor of Dublin, Cllr Mary Freehill, has said. There were a lot of websites "which made various statements but they weren't actually coming from U2 themselves", she said.

The Lord Mayor announced the supposed concert on RTE radio on December 28th. She said the band would give the performance to up to 8,000 people in Smithfield civic square after the band members and their manager, Mr Paul McGuinness, had been granted the freedom of the city. She said she was "thrilled" that U2 were "prepared to do a short concert".

However, Mr McGuinness issued a statement on Thursday saying any suggestion the band would play a free concert was wrong.

When asked "What went wrong?" on RTE radio's News at One yesterday, Cllr Freehill said the concert was a matter for the band itself.

"We had hoped that [U2 giving a free concert] might have been the case. That seems to have been a misunderstanding and that's not the case now," she said. "The point is we're in communication with one another now. We're getting into the business now of organising the conferring of the freedom of the city."

The conferring will be "probably in early March", she said.

"It will be an opportunity for all the citizens of Dublin to be there and to applaud U2 for their contribution to the city. . .I think at this stage it's sufficient to appreciate them and to confer this honour on them. And I'm quite happy with that. And I think certainly that a lot of Dubliners will be, too." The freedom of the city will also be granted to Aung San Suu Kyi, the Burmese human rights campaigner.