In der aktuellen Ausgabe des Hotpress-Magazines ist ein Interview mit dem Besitzer von Slane Castle zu lesen. Vom Aristokraten zum Rock'n'Roll Promoter. Schon 1981 gaben U2 ihr erster Konzert auf Slane Castle als Vorgruppe von Thin Lizzy. Dann folgen die Aufnahmen zu The Unforgettable Fire und die Rückkehr nach Slane 2001 mit 2 ausverkauften Konzerten am 25. August und am 1. September. Auszüge aus dem Interview gibt es hier zu lesen, das ganze Interview nur bei Hotpress.com (kostenpflichtig).

King of the Castle: Lord Henry Mountcharles Interview by Olaf Tyaransen ... OT: I’d say the 13-year-old really enjoys the rock & roll aspect of the castle. LHMC: Well actually, they all do. But yes, my little daughter is very excited about Madonna coming to play. But all my kids love it. In fact, I started doing the shows in Slane in 1981 – Thin Lizzy and U2 – and that’s rather a long time ago. And my kids have grown up through it. I mean, I can remember my second son bouncing on his bed in 1982 singing ‘(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction’. Which is a kind of interesting visual image [smiles]. But they would have a very substantial influence now over my thinking as to who would play the venue, and have obviously been involved in working on the concerts – all of them, including little Tamara – in sort of various degrees. So they know a great deal about it and are very involved in it. ... The U2 gigs were all kind of special as well. OT: Were you around Slane when they recorded the album there? LHMC: Oh yeah, I was living there. Very much so. So we were all living together. OT: Were you banging on the floor of your bedroom going, ‘Keep the bloody noise down!’? LHMC: Ha, ha! Well there was a lot of noise in the building! Paul McGuinness really wondered whether I knew what I was letting myself in for. But it was a lovely period. It was also a lovely period of my life. I split up with my first wife in 1982 and I didn’t meet Iona until, gosh, it was October ‘84. So it was lovely having lots of people in the building because it’s a pretty big building to live in by yourself. So obviously there’s a close relationship there. I mean, one of my closest buddies is Adam. And in addition to that, Adam is our young daughter’s godfather. So we would see a lot of each other. And I know all of the band and I like all of them. They’ve been part of the whole Slane thing from the start. And those two U2 gigs were extremely emotional. It was emotional for Bono because of his father’s death. But it was enormously emotional for us because they’d lived in the building, and then The Unforgettable Fire, and then the real fire, and then the decade of reconstruction. OT: I presume they were in touch immediately when the castle burnt down. LHMC: Oh yeah. God! It was more interesting to see who didn’t bother picking up the phone. But the band were pretty freaked themselves. It is a pretty bloody weird thing to record an album in the building, to call the album The Unforgettable Fire, and then the bloody place nearly burns to the ground – and us in it! Lord Henry Mountcharles (c) Cathal Dawson