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Sunday World
17 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Sunday World
Pop icon Leo Sayer reveals how he forced Gerry Adams and Ian Paisley to shake hands
IRISH LINK | 'I grabbed Gerry Adams out of his seat and I made him shake hands with Ian Paisley, all the bodyguards stood back 'cause they didn't know what the f**k to do' Thunder In My Heart singer Sayer (77) also recalls a bizarre encounter with the late Martin McGuinness at a Miriam O'Callaghan TV show — during which McGuinness told him where to find the body of his uncle, a brother of Leo's mother, Teresa, who was from Fermanagh and one of 14 siblings. 'I spent a lot of my childhood up to the age of 15 on summer holidays in Fermanagh, Cavan or Donegal,' Leo tells Magazine+ as he gets set for an Irish tour. 'One of my uncles, Uncle Phil, went missing one year. It was always kind of rumoured, although nobody said it out loud, that he was a serious guy in the IRA, a commander for his area. 'Of course, where we were in Fermanagh was very much rebel country, so they needed somebody who knew the lie of the land, and that's who he was. 'Uncle Phil was not seen for 20 years. Then I'm doing the Miriam TV show (Saturday Night with Miriam in 2005) and Martin McGuinness is on the show. Leo Sayer performing ib 1980 'He comes up to me backstage and says, 'Hello, I'm Martin McGuinness, there's something I gotta tell you.' I was kind of admiring Martin because of what he did with the Peace Process, which was very good at the end. 'But he did have a chequered past. 'He said, 'Look, I want to do something for you because I know that Phil Nolan was your uncle. 'We didn't see Uncle Phil,' I said to him. He said, 'Well, he was working with us and I want to give you the geo-coordinates of where he is buried.' 'He had died in some shooting and they buried him on the spot in the field so the other side couldn't claim they had shot an IRA leader. It would be a big score for them. 'So I got the geo-coordinates from Martin McGuinness, gave it to the remaining family and they dug Uncle Phil up and gave him a proper burial.' Looking back at his encounter with Gerry Adams and Ian Paisley at one of his live shows during the height of The Troubles, Leo says: 'I remember it was at a show I did in the Kings Hall in Belfast, a huge place. Most of the Protestants were one side and the Catholics were on the other side and Gerry Adams and Ian Paisley were there. 'So I jump off the stage and I grab Gerry Adams out of his seat and I bring him over and I make him shake hands with Ian Paisley... and all the bodyguards stood back 'cause they didn't know what the f**k to do.' Leo Sayer says his cousins will be looking for tickets for his Irish shows Today's News in 90 Seconds - June 13 2025 'So I made them stand in the middle of this massive area between the row of seats and I made them shake hands, and somebody got the photo. It was one of those moments.' Sayer, who started out in songwriting and co-wrote most of the songs on the debut solo album of The Who's Roger Daltry, including Giving It All Away, tells how he crossed paths with many unscrupulous characters throughout his career. His first manager, former British pop star Adam Faith, ripped him off at the start of his career. Leo had a string of hits like The Show Must Go On, One Man Band, Long Tall Glasses, Moonlighting and You Make Me Feel Like Dancing. As the chart-toppers racked up, the money rolled in, but Sayer says the late Adam Faith took advantage of him. 'Because I didn't look at the contracts there were consequences,' he says. 'Adam made more money than I did and it [their relationship] ended in a bit of bitterness.' 'However, he was a wonderful manager in that he opened doors for me and, also, he taught me so much stuff from his own experience. But at the same time he was a thief. I wouldn't have had the career that I've had without having the thief as well. So I think you always have to balance it up. 'I've known so many rogues in my life. I've played many, many shows with Bill Cosby in America and we were friends. That Weinstein guy [Harvey Weinstein] was my agent one time in America. 'And Andy Coulson [former News of the World editor, jailed in 2014 on phone hacking charges] was my PR guy. So, honestly, I'll tell you, I've had some rogues.' Read more However, Sayer adds that he has also met many good guys along the way, including our own Fr Brian D'Arcy who promoted him in Ireland at the start of his career. Fr Brian was writing for The Cross magazine at the time and knew Leo's cousin, Fr Salvian. And it was Leo's mother who wrote her son's press release, which the singer recently posted on social media. 'You saw my mum's attempt at being my PR person? It was wonderful. It's golden isn't it,' he laughs. 'Fr Salvian, my second cousin, used to room with Brian in the seminary, so Brian was always hearing about me as I was coming up. And I think the interview with The Cross came via Mum. 'Fr Salvian said to her 'it would be really useful if you would give Fr D'Arcy some info about Gerard, which is my real name. So Mum wrote a piece for Fr Brian. 'Brian and I used to be very close we'd chat all the time,' says Leo, who now lives in Australia. 'One day I was hanging around with some of the boys from U2 and Bono comes flying into the room going, 'You know Brian!' 'We were sitting down, me and Paul (Bono) as I used to know him, talking about Brian D'Arcy and what an amazing man he always was. 'Brian knew all of Bono's family really well, so he also followed Bono coming up as a young wannabe. 'Brian also knew my grandad on my mum's side. Grandad married twice and had 14 kids, so mum was one of 14 siblings. 'I've got many, many cousins there today. When I play a concert there will be a request from the cousins for the guest list. I said to Pat Egan [promoter], I need 27 tickets… so that's why we're doing it in the Bord Gais Energy Theatre — the Olympia Theatre would be too small,' he laughs. 'I've had so many wonderful experiences in Ireland through the decades. Tommy Swarbrigg was promoting me one time and I played everywhere from Mullingar to Arklow, all those places. I remember one time playing on the back of a truck in a field. It was extraordinary some of the experiences I had.'
The Independent
2 days ago
- The Independent
History is repeating itself in my hometown and it's terrifying to watch
Once, when I was a teenager, I was in a Spar in Ballymena when a man walked in and announced he would burn the shop to the ground if it didn't close immediately. My sister and I did not hesitate. Like everyone else, we believed him – and fled. We had been intending to dash in to the store for just a few minutes to stock up on essentials, amid fears of a long few days ahead of us as rioting broke out across Northern Ireland in the 1990s over Drumcree. So it's terrifying to watch violence unfold in my hometown again, as we have over recent nights. Around a 30-minute drive from Belfast, although it occasionally felt like further, Ballymena is often dubbed the buckle of the 'bible belt' of Northern Ireland, surprising visitors with the number of churches that line its streets. A DUP heartland, its MP was for many decades the firebrand preacher the Rev Ian Paisley, who used to secure huge parliamentary majorities, often winning one in every two votes cast. Its status as a prosperous market town in the middle of Northern Ireland, its name literally means 'middle town', helped during the long years of the Troubles. It is the home of Northern Ireland's first Sainsbury's, opened not long before the Good Friday Agreement, giving me a weekend bakery job – which occassionally included putting the jam in jam doughnuts – one of hundreds of jobs it brought to the town, as well as a company slogan "A fresh approach" that we hoped matched the times. That prosperity is one of the reasons that the town attracted immigrants in the years after the peace process proved a lasting success – migrants who are now the subject of horrific violence. In one video shared online, a woman tells the rioters: 'Be careful, lads', followed by a man telling her there were people living in one of the houses being attacked. She replied: 'Aye, but are they local? If they're local, they need out. If they're not local, let them f****** stay there.' Like everywhere in Northern Ireland, Ballymena has suffered its share of atrocities in the past. In 2006 a 15-year-old Catholic boy was beaten to death in an attack that started outside the local cinema, not all that far from where the latest riots erupted this week. The Harryville part of the town, where hundreds of people gathered this week, was the scene of loyalist protests for years against the presence of a Catholic church in a strongly Protestant area in the late 1990s. In December 1996, a 300-strong contingent of police in riot gear was needed to ensure local people were able to attend Mass, as an article for The Independent recorded at the time. And, of course, violence erupted over Drumcree, a long-running conflict about a Protestant Orange Order march in Portadown. After the incident in the Spar, my family stayed home for days, watching events unfold on the news, part of an unofficial night-time curfew that saw thousands of people lock themselves down decades before any of us had ever heard of Covid. On a separate summer I spent a mini-break in Brussels – won, bizarrely, as part of my school's quiz team – holed up in a hotel room with three fellow pupils, watching helplessly on CNN as riots erupted at home. When we landed back in Belfast International airport late at night, the violence had become so widespread we faced a difficult and potentially treacherous journey getting home. At one point we were stopped by police just as our car came face to face with an overturned and burnt out bus. That was in 1998, when the riots did not stop until the appalling murders of three young brothers in a loyalist arson attack in Ballymoney, about 20 miles from Ballymena. Hopefully it will not take a tragedy like that for the violence to end this time. More about Ballymena Northern Ireland Ian Paisley Belfast
Spectator
04-05-2025
- Politics
- Spectator
Are Protestants free to criticise Catholicism?
The death of a Pope is a time for assorted reflections on the Catholic Church. Protestants can be wary of speaking up. Even the word 'Protestant' is not a very familiar one these days. Sure, most of us know that the Church of England is Protestant, and that Luther was Protestant and that the Reformation was the birth of the Protestant movement. But the Church of England doesn't draw attention to its Protestant identity. There's a vague sense that to do so would be bigoted. For doesn't Protestant mean anti-Catholic? The last proud Protestant was Ian Paisley – and even he softened in old age. It is now widely felt to be embarrassing that the British constitution has an anti-Catholic aspect (the monarch is still not allowed to be a Catholic, though the ban on marrying a Catholic has recently been lifted). So the old sectarianism is dead and gone, to the relief of all, and mutual respect reigns supreme.
Belfast Telegraph
24-04-2025
- General
- Belfast Telegraph
Nervous unionists needn't worry; the ‘Catholic surge' won't bring us any closer to a united Ireland
The late Rev Ian Paisley probably checked out at the right time. When he was still with us, the one-time poster boy for anti-Catholic bigotry resided in a place where, like everywhere else in the United Kingdom, Protestants boasted the largest flock. To be fair, the Big Man — whose back yard in 1960s Ballymena backed onto my family's property and whom my parents (and, later, an older me) got to know and like — mellowed into a more accommodating, objective and open-minded person in his later years.
Sunday World
22-04-2025
- Politics
- Sunday World
Former right-hand man of late DUP firebrand Paisley says he would've loved Irish language row
The former Stormont politician swapped banter with this reporter in a chat outside his south Belfast home last week. Deceased DUP leader the Reverend Ian Paisley would have enjoyed the current row over the Irish language. That is the view of Paisley's former right-hand man Clifford Smyth, who penned a best-selling book about the firebrand Free Presbyterian preacher. He was commenting on the ongoing political fall-out over plans to install Irish language signage at Belfast's new city centre transport hub. The former Stormont politician swapped banter with this reporter in a chat outside his south Belfast home last week. Now 81 and retired, Smyth — who was forced out the DUP nearly 50 years ago — discussed a range of topics, including the Irish language, his teenage years in Scotland and his friendship with the 'Big Man'. 'Ian Paisley would have loved the row over the Irish language. He would have been right in the middle of it,' Mr Smyth said. CONTROVERSIAL: Ian Paisley 'My wife Anne also gets very vexed about this.' But it appears Mr and Mrs Smyth may have agreed to differ over their views on the Irish language. Because Clifford was once a member of the now defunct Ireland's Heritage Orange Lodge, which had Irish in its banner. But on the subject of Ian Paisley, Mr Smyth also added a note of caution: 'The problem with Ian Paisley was he didn't like rivals. He wanted everyone to agree with him. That's what I found anyway.' A former history teacher, Smyth's biography of the DUP founder, Ian Paisley: Voice of Protestant Ulster, offers an insight to the man who dominated unionist politics for over 50 years. 'Ian Paisley became very uncomfortable if someone offered an alternative view. He just didn't like rivals, as I found out to my cost,' he said. Earlier this month Infrastructure Minister Liz Kimmins sparked a row when she announced that the £350m Grand Central Station — Ireland's biggest transport hub — would become bilingual. STRONG VIEWS: Anne Smyth Many unionists criticised a 'waste' of public money over the £150,000 cost of introducing bilingual signs and ticket machines. However, Irish language groups welcomed the move and said similar signs in Newry on the Dublin-Belfast train route which leaves Belfast's Grand Central created no controversy at all. Clifford Smyth has long left politics behind but still has strong opinions and shares them with his Glasgow-born wife Anne, a TUV activist who stood for the party in the last local government elections in 2023. She received 564 first preference votes and was eliminated in the fourth count. Mrs Smyth, who helped found the DUP, told us in 2023 that she didn't believe research that showed that many Protestants in Northern Ireland could speak Irish in the early part of the last century. She told us: 'It has been claimed Protestant soldiers in the trenches of World War One spoke Irish to each other, but I just don't believe that. I feel many people have been bought off by the government money,' she adds. She has also spoken out against East Belfast GAA club after it cancelled a training session in a local primary school. She claimed the decision was 'justifiable in view of the sectarian nature of the supposed 'sporting' organisation that is the GAA'. Anne and Clifford once performed a travelling stage show at charity events linked to the Orange Order. Anne played the accordion while her husband, dressed as exotic dancer Carmen Miranda — complete with a fruit bowl hat on his head — danced around the room. In 1996, Clifford caused a stir when, during the launch of a book on the Kincora Boys Home scandal, he revealed he was once addicted to wearing his wife's clothes. And Smyth went on to reveal he disclosed his secret passion to William McGrath, a house master in the Kincora Boys Home, who was later jailed over sexually abusing underprivileged boys. Smyth and McGrath were both members of the Ireland's Heritage Orange Lodge. Speaking at the launch, Clifford said: 'At that time I had a fetish for wearing my wife's clothes. I no longer have it. But I made the mistake of mentioning this to William McGrath and this led to McGrath giving me months of bogus therapy in his home.' And Smyth later reiterated his claims when he gave evidence to a Judicial Inquiry into sexual abuse in state-funded institutions in Northern Ireland. And speaking to the Sunday World this week, Clifford was also critical of some of the individuals responsible for the promotion of Ulster Scots language and culture in Northern Ireland. But Smyth stopped short of saying anything controversial on the matter. He smiled before adding: 'On that note, we'll say goodbye.'
