Where would rock and roll be in Ireland today without Lord Henry Mount Charles?
God bless Henry – few called him Lord Mount Charles - and the odd socks he loved to wear when I first met him.
Kudos too for hanging in there, despite setbacks in the early days that might have forced lesser mortals to throw in the towel.
In 1981, I hopped on a bus to Slane to watch my favourite rock band Thin Lizzy inaugurate Slane Castle as an outdoor venue to rival the Hollywood Bowl.
Where would rock and roll be today without Henry Mount Charles?
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A natural amphitheatre if ever there was one, it is perfectly situated on the green grassy slopes of the Boyne and overlooked by a storied 18th century castle.
On a hot August day, in a country mired in mournful news around the 1981 hunger strikes and despite threats that the concert should not go ahead, Phil Lynott strode out on stage with his cheeky grin.
At the height of his vocal powers, he lifted the spirits of 20,000 fans, the largest crowd he would ever sing to in Ireland.
The occasion subtly marked an imminent changing of the guard. Lizzy were supported by northside Dublin upstarts U2 and their set already included two crowd-pleasing anthems, Out of Control and I will Follow.
Phil Lynott was back in the castle grounds the following year drinking champagne from the boot of a limo in the VIP area, while waiting for the Rolling Stones to take to the stage.
I was back too at the end of a weeklong assignment covering the build-up to Ireland’s biggest ever rock concert, courtesy of the Irish Press newsdesk.
Unable to get a room in Slane’s Conyngham Arms Hotel, I persuaded a local housewife to allow me to pitch a tent in her garden in case I needed to spend an overnight in the village.
Henry was greatly amused when I told him about my fallback plan as he toured the village one evening with Bill Graham, the America impresario overseeing the Stones tour of Europe.
One afternoon I found myself unexpectedly standing beside Mick Jagger as he surveyed the stage a couple of days before the concert.
He was just telling me how much he loved Ireland when Bill Graham rocked up on his quad and demanded to know if I had submitted a request to interview Mr. Jagger. Hardly, I said, I had no idea I was going to bump into him.
A muscle-bound bodyguard moved between me and the now silent Mr Jagger.
Bill was only too happy to talk about his own exploits in the music industry, but he did keep one thing to himself.
As later reported, Keith Richards sent him a note threatening to cancel the July 24th concert if all profits did not go to the families of the eleven soldiers who were killed by the IRA during military ceremonies in Hyde Park and Regent’s Park, just four days before the concert.
The threat of cancellation must have been stomach-churning for Henry and the local promoter Jim Aiken given the work already done preparing the site for 80,000 fans.
The gig was a game changer for the Irish music industry but the following year there was no Slane as Henry took a breather.
Would he be back?
In 1984, Bob Dylan was announced for Sunday, July 8th, as the headline act.
I wasted no time booking into the Conyngham Arms Hotel.
On the Saturday, the sun was beating down and I cooled off in the River Boyne, swimming behind the backstage area.
Early in the afternoon, I got an uneasy feeling mingling with the large crowds of people drinking and smoking on the main street as tractor-loads of hay trundled by.
Darkness was falling when a disturbance broke out. An arrest led a drunken crowd of youths to attempt setting fire to the Garda station.
And so began a long day’s journey into night with gardai being drafted in from Dublin and elsewhere to quell the rioting which quickly spread.
Eventually, I went to bed, figuring Sunday would be a busy day but with any luck I would still get to see and hear Mr Dylan.
That was not to be as more bad news followed. Two young men drowned trying to swim across the Boyne to see the concert.
The tragedy is immortalised in the Paul Durcan poem that begins: “I saw close up the make-up on Bob Dylan’s face!”
It was a devastating blow.
Henry voiced doubts about staging any future concerts. Jim Aiken had a few cross words with me over breakfast in the hotel about the Monday morning headline “Slane says never again.”
But both men were made of sterner stuff.
They bounced back the following year when Bruce Springsteen played to what was then the largest crowd of his career to date.
So nervous was he, that, to Henry’s delight, the Boss decided to play the full set for a small audience in the Castle the night before.
“After Slane, it just got bigger and bigger for him,” said Henry. And, thereafter, a steady procession of rock royalty beat a path to his lordship’s door.
It’s only rock and roll but Henry liked it, and he stuck with it, yes, he did.
