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Pat spoke to Tony Hollingsworth who organised the Nelson Mandela 70th Birthday Tribute – a global broadcast event at Wembley Stadium 25 years ago.
Tony got the idea for the first Mandela global broadcast event after talking to singer Jerry Dammers of the Speicals ska band who had written the song Free Nelson Mandela in 1984 and founded the Artists Against Apartheid organisation the following year. Hollingsworth contacted Dammers to say that Greater London Council where he was a consultant might be able to fund the AAA.
Artists involved, Simple Minds, Dire Straits, George Michael, Whitney Houston, Aswad Hank Wangford, .......Miriam Makeba and Hugh Masekela. Eric Clapton and he got Harry Belafonte spoke.
It not merely filled Wembley Stadium but was televised in at least 67 countires to an audience of 600 million people raising worldwide consciousness about Mandela’s imprisonment by the South African apartheid regime.
18 month after the concert with Mandela now free, Mandela through his solicitor arranged a similar event to celebrate his release so that Mandela could address the world...the second event the Nelson Mandela An International Tribute for a Free South Africa was like the first to be broadcast around the world and was broadcast from Wembley Stadium to 61 Countries and 500 million audience on April 16 1990 54 days after his release. Wembley was filled with 74,000 capacity.
News has emerged that overnight Turkish riot police moved into Istanbul's Taksim Square, which has been occupied by anti-government protesters for almost two weeks. Pat spoke to journalist David O’Byrne.
Pat spoke to Mary Louise O’Donnell who has been out with her rod and line on the waters of Lough Sheelin.
As the Proclamation of the Irish Republic was being read from the steps of the General Post Office on Sackville Street on Easter Monday 24th April 1916, 160 members of the Irish Citizen Army under Commandant Michael Mallin were taking up position around St Stephen's Green.
For seven days, from their posts in St Stephen’s Green and City Hall, this small force of men and women fought against British soldiers as they struggled to protect the newly proclaimed Irish Republic.
For almost a century, accusations of poor strategic awareness and a lack of organisation have been levelled against Mallin and his force for their actions during that Easter week.
In this new work, Paul O'Brien shows that, despite being outnumbered and outgunned, Mallin carried out his orders and fought with tenacity during this vital part of the Easter Rising. Pat spoke to Paul O'Brien.
Overnight a pre-sentencing hearing in the Victorian Supreme Court in Melbourne heard that Adrian Bayley, the man who has pleaded guilty to murdering Jill Meagher, had a string of sexual offences against women and admitted to faking his way through a sex offender’s programme.
Pat spoke to Sarah Farnsworth of ABC News is Melbourne.
There is an extraordinary case outlined in today’s Irish Examiner by Michael Clifford, it involves a Limerick drugs gang, a post office robbery and an arrest and a conviction that went very wrong for the garda informer at the centre of the story. Pat was by Michael Clifford of the Irish Examiner.
USA Today recently named it one of the top ten ice cream shops in the world, and having started in Dingle, Murphy’s Ice Cream has expanded to Dublin and Killarney. What makes this product unique is that the ingredients are sourced in Ireland and the product is handmade, in an era when traditional ice cream is not so traditional any more. Last week, Brian O’Connell visited Dingle and traced the ice-cream from farm to shop counter, chatting to tourists along the way and also finding out why selling Murphy’s ice-cream in Temple Bar became too dangerous for the company and their staff.
