Why shoot down stars...we should look up to them
IRELAND may well be the land of saints and scholars, but we’re also a nation full of begrudgers and Bono bashers.
It was sad to hear Brian Mcfadden and Keith Duffy say they don’t play gigs here with their act Boyzlife because they fear becoming the butt of endless jokes.
Why poke fun at these entertainers who bring genuine joy to countless others?
Our mindset towards our biggest exports can sometimes be a bit like the People’s Front of Judea in Monty Python’s Life of Brian.
In one memorable scene John Cleese raises the question to his band of revolutionaries: “What have the Romans ever done for us?”
Not much, he basically says in the next breath, if you disregarded sanitation, irrigation, education, infrastructure, public baths, a health system and law and order.
In a similar vein, our small island was put on the map by the likes of U2, Ronan Keating, Bob Geldof, B*witched, The Corrs, Sinead O’connor, Daniel O’donnell and Chris de Burgh.
AMBASSADORS
I cannot understand why punters would want to mock these guys and gals who have been wonderful ambassadors on a global level for our great little nation.
Those same armchair critics fail to remember that our tourism industry only punches above its weight because of the goodwill from countless fans of Irish music and literature from around the world who flock here solely to pay homage to the likes of Bono.
Moaners were all too quick to get their teenage kicks out of sniggering at Ronan Keating for “murdering” a cover version of Fairytale of New York by The Pogues in 2000.
Yet, if it was so bad how come it was such a big hit in other countries?
This is a deep-rooted jealousy over their wealth more than a case of familiarity breeds contempt.
But these entertainers wouldn’t be rolling in it if they simply weren’t good enough.
As US President Abraham Lincoln memorably stated: “You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.”
Take English icon Gary Barlow, for example, who is one of the biggest icons to come out of the UK during the past 30 years. He has written some classic tunes including Patience and the Greatest Day, which The Beatles themselves would have been proud to call their own.
I can guarantee you that if Gary was a Paddy, the Irish begrudgers wouldn’t be talking about his ability to pen cracking tunes.
They would rather be slagging him over the fact he appeared topless in some teenage girls’ magazines when he first started out.
We see it all the time with Boyzone, who are still laughed at over their first appearance on the Late Late in which they could neither dance nor hold a tune.
Yet those five working class Dubs went on to become the second most successful boy band of all time in Britain. We should be singing their praises, not knocking them. Honestly, those who like to shoot fish in a barrel as if it was a blood sport have a chip on their shoulder.
Oscar Wilde summed it up perfectly: “We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.”
Let’s start making a bigger song and dance about the likes of Keith Duffy and Brian Mcfadden.
But these stars would not be rolling in it if they weren’t good
Boyzone are still laughed at for their first Late Late appearance