{"id":480422,"date":"2026-05-12T06:29:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-12T06:29:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/480422\/"},"modified":"2026-05-12T06:29:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T06:29:12","slug":"self-aid-at-40-how-u2-bob-geldof-and-irelands-biggest-stars-tried-to-create-jobs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/480422\/","title":{"rendered":"Self Aid at 40: How U2, Bob Geldof and Ireland\u2019s biggest stars tried to create jobs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-91174671_secondary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom4 indo-1d70522a_marginleft0 indo-1d70522a_marginright0 indo-1d70522a_margintop4\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\" data-testid=\"title-summary\">Leading rock acts united to fight unemployment but critics questioned what the mammoth concert really achieved\n<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"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).\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/e52d99af-cf11-4b5f-926b-d1645dc83312.jpg\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"100%\" data-testid=\"article-image\"  \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_caption1 indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_secondary indo-66f0fec7_regular indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_marginleft0 indo-1d70522a_marginright0 indo-1d70522a_margintop3 indo-b48c4984_left\" style=\"color:var(--color-grey-60)\">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).<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">The organisers of Self Aid \u2013 Ireland\u2019s response to the unemployment crisis of the 1980s, and inspired by Live Aid \u2013 knew it was a contentious undertaking, but few anticipated that its very name would have a labour union up in arms.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">When the idea was first proposed by senior figures at RT\u00c9, 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 \u2013 May 17, 1986 \u2013 got closer, it was changed to Self Aid.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Leading rock acts united to fight unemployment but critics questioned what the mammoth concert really achieved Bob Geldof&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":480423,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[264],"tags":[21088,18,117,19,17,17689,337,2519],"class_list":{"0":"post-480422","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-bob-geldof","9":"tag-eire","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-john-meagher","14":"tag-music","15":"tag-review-magazine"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116560198332140500","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480422","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=480422"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480422\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/480423"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=480422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=480422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=480422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}