Bob Geldof has said he believes he would have "walked" the Presidential Election had he chosen to run, following months of speculation about a possible campaign.
The musician and activist was speaking at Technological University Dublin at an event marking the 50th anniversary of The Boomtown Rats' first gig.
He said: "If I'd stood, I'd have walked it. And I would have been really good. I could only do it if I had been nominated by a party and they didn't know I was interested."
Over the summer, Geldof had been linked with a potential run for the Áras, and has previously acknowledged that he had spoken with Taoiseach and Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin on the subject.
Today, the 74-year-old unveiled a commemorative plaque on the front of TU Dublin's Bolton Street campus with bandmate Pete Briquette. It marks the Boomtown Rats’ first concert, which took place at the then Bolton Street Technical College on 31 October 1975.
The band went on to become the first Irish rock group to reach No.1 in the UK singles chart with Rat Trap in 1978.
Speaking on RTÉ Radio 1’s Morning Ireland, Geldof recalled how he initially thought that first gig would be a "disaster".
"I never wanted to do it because I'd never heard myself. I was singing through a bingo microphone and they were playing really loud. I think the microphone was plugged into the bass amp - you know, like kids just playing," he said.
"I just thought, this is going to be a disaster. We got on this teacher’s platform in the classroom - about thirty people there. I thought we should call the band The Nightlife Thugs, so somebody had written that on a blackboard. But I changed my mind the night before, and when we got up on stage it just kicked off."
He described how, halfway through the set, the group realised something was beginning to take shape.
"Pete - the bass player - said that halfway through, he got really excited by this band that we didn't even know we were in, because we’d never really heard ourselves. About halfway through we took a break, I went over to the blackboard where The Nightlife Thugs was written, and with one wild sweep I wiped it off and wrote The Boomtown Rats. And there we were."
Reflecting on the early days, Geldof said it still feels strange to be honoured for what started as "that sort of crappy band from Dún Laoghaire".
"Without that gig at Bolton Street that Halloween night, you don't get the rest," he said. "You don’t get the articulation and the rage about what was happening to Ireland and in Ireland, the sort of social sickness that was occurring. There was this great silence – we all knew – but we said nothing. And then these kids from South Dublin decided, well, they would say something."
He added that the Rats’ music became part of a broader cultural pushback during a difficult period for the country, when unemployment and inflation were high and strikes widespread.
"Time telescopes itself, and I remember that period vividly," he said. "The noise was one of rage and rejection. It was the beginning of a pushback against that."
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