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Hey, Bono, the Beatles were not Irish – they were American to the core

31 July, 2015 - 0 Comments

At first it looked like Bono, the robber baron of pop, had struck again. Not content with trying to turn the world’s mobile phones into a global brainwashing droid army by secretly implanting U2’s new album into their otherwise immaculate iTunes libraries, now he’s trying to steal the Beatles.

“John Lennon was an immigrant,” he said on Ellis Island on Wednesday, at a celebration of the 40th anniversary of John Lennon being granted his US green card. “One more Irish immigrant on an island full of Irish immigrants … Let’s claim him, in fact let’s claim all the Beatles, not as immigrants, but as Irish.”

He may have been semi-comically nodding to America’s widely claimed Irish roots but you could virtually hear Merseyside bristling at his blasphemy. Yet Bono’s argument has precedence. The Beatles’ Irish roots have, according to some cultural repatriators, never been properly acknowledged.

Lennon was born and raised in Liverpool, as were his parents, after which his family tree starts sprouting shamrocks. Some sources claim that his paternal grandfather, a freight clerk called John (Jack) Lennon, originated from 19th-century Dublin and married an Irish woman called Mary after moving to Liverpool.

By: Mark Beaumont

Source: The Guardian

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