WE used to sneak in the back to smoke and charm girls,’ says Adam Clayton, bass guitarist of U2. That was in the 1970s, when he was a boarder at St Columba’s College in Dublin. Little did he guess that, in the following decade, he would become the owner of that same estate at the foot of the Dublin Mountains.
In 1986, the band rented the house—which was standing empty—to record their fifth studio album,, in the acoustically gorgeous, lofty drawing room. The then owner, remembers Mr Clayton, had said: ‘If anyone wants to buy the house at the end of the recording, I’ll subtract the rental from the price.’ So, in 1988, aged 28, he found himself in possession of Danesmoate: a large Georgian house, numerous ancillary
