Leading rock acts united to fight unemployment but critics questioned what the mammoth concert really achieved
Bob Geldof of The Boomtown Rats on stage during Self-Aid benefit concert in the RDS, 17/05/1986 (Part of the Independent Newspapers Ireland/NLI Collection).
The organisers of Self Aid – Ireland’s response to the unemployment crisis of the 1980s, and inspired by Live Aid – knew it was a contentious undertaking, but few anticipated that its very name would have a labour union up in arms.
When the idea was first proposed by senior figures at RTÉ, and with the backing of Boomtown Rat and Live Aid co-creator Bob Geldof, the benefit concert had the working title of Jobs Aid. But as the event date – May 17, 1986 – got closer, it was changed to Self Aid.