Northern Ireland

Gerry Adams 'news to me and to anyone else close to republican thinking' that IRA targeted Bono

U2 frontman Bono, centre, pictured in 1998 with then UUP leader David Trimble and then SDLP leader John Hume. Picture by Paul Faith/ Pacemaker
U2 frontman Bono, centre, pictured in 1998 with then UUP leader David Trimble and then SDLP leader John Hume. Picture by Paul Faith/ Pacemaker U2 frontman Bono, centre, pictured in 1998 with then UUP leader David Trimble and then SDLP leader John Hume. Picture by Paul Faith/ Pacemaker

FORMER Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams says it is "news to me and to anyone else close to republican thinking" that Bono and his wife were targeted by the IRA.

Mr Adams has also dismissed claims that he "hates" the U2 frontman, claiming it is a "wasted negative emotion".

It comes after Dublin-born rocker said he and his wife Ali received death threats from the IRA as well as gangsters and some far right groups throughout their career.

In his soon-to-be-released book, Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story, the singer recalls how special branch officers said his wife, who he married in 1982, was the more likely target than him.

"I still take that badly," he writes.

Bono also claims in the book that Mr Adams said he "stinks" because of his pro-peace stance.

"U2’s opposition to paramilitaries (of all kinds) had cost the IRA valuable fundraising in the US," the book alleges.

But the former Sinn Féin president has dismissed Bono's claims of IRA threats.

"I understand from press reports that he says his wife Ali and he were targets for the IRA," he wrote in his Andersonstown News column.

"That’s news to me and I’m sure to anyone else close to republican thinking back in the day."

Mr Adams also denied reports claiming that he hates the U2 frontman.

"You must be mixing me up with someone else," he said.

"I don’t hate anyone. It’s a wasted negative emotion. I do detest imperialism - a good old fashioned word.

"Greed. Cruelty. Unbridled capitalism. War. Poverty. I believe in freedom. Solidarity. Equality. Community. Socialism. The Arts."

Mr Adams said while he admired Bono's work in highlighting issues of social injustice around the world, his "commentary on the conflict here was shrill, ill-informed and unhelpful".

"However, you weren’t on your own," said Mr Adams.

"You echoed the Irish establishment line. It was the wrong line for decades. A failure of governance and the abandonment of responsibility to lead a process of peace and justice.

"Thankfully that changed. But it took a long time. Despite this some of us got through it all. With or without you."

Bono's criticism of the IRA is not the first time he has hit out at republicans.

In 1987, as U2 recorded their documentary 'Rattle And Hum' in Colorado, Bono condemned the IRA Remembrance Day bomb which had killed 11 people earlier that day in Enniskillen.

"I’ve had enough of Irish Americans who haven’t been back to their country in 20 or 30 years come up to me and talk about the resistance, the revolution back home…and the glory of the revolution…and the glory of dying for the revolution," he said.

"They don’t talk about the glory of killing for the revolution.

"What’s the glory in taking a man from his bed and gunning him down in front of his wife and his children? Where’s the glory in that? Where’s the glory in bombing a Remembrance Day parade of old age pensioners, their medals taken out and polished up for the day. Where’s the glory in that?

"To leave them dying or crippled for life or dead under the rubble of a revolution that the majority of the people in my country don’t want. No more."