Six or seven thousand people were in attendance at the inaugural Lark by the Lee and each and every one of them could scarcely believe their eyes as U2 walked out on stage. It was the best kept secret on Leeside for months. The last gig U2 had played was at Live Aid in Wembley Stadium. That performance was described by Rolling Stone as “a career-making moment” for the band, six weeks later they were in Cork on the back of a 40-foot truck. Lark by the Lee was the idea of Ian Wilson, then the producer of Dave Fanning’s evening radio show on RTÉ Radio 2. Wilson smiles as he remembers how U2’s secret Lark gig was planned: “Radio 2, as it was at the time, had been running a series of concerts in Dublin called Lark in the Park. They were successful, a simple formula, a free concert with a relatively low budget. “With Cork 800 coming up we knew that we’d get the support of Cork City Hall, which we did, they were fully onside,” continues Wilson. “There was a little bit of dosh available and a lot of goodwill. We put on four Cork bands which was a pretty broad range of what was going on at the time. Freddie White was to headline and he was a big act in Ireland.” RTÉ’s soccer correspondent Tony O’Donoghue was then a freelance journalist. “I worked for Cork Local Radio doing a music slot and I was also writing for Hot Press magazine,” remembers O’Donoghue. “Ian Wilson tasked me with being the local coordinator.” “It was an all Cork line up,” remembers O’Donoghue. “The headliner was Freddy White. Porcelyn Tears were an all-girl band who were really good. The Stargazers were doing jazz and folk, and Cypress, Mine! were an up-and-coming guitar band that I was managing at the time. Obviously I was thrilled that my own band were on the bill. There was something for everyone.” A few months before the Lark, U2’s sound engineer, Corkman Joe O’Herlihy, approached Ian Wilson. “The U2 crew were all from Cork,” recalls Wilson. “They put a bit of pressure on the band’s management about a Cork gig and asked me could they piggy back on Lark by the Lee and do it as a complete surprise.” Wilson had a meeting with U2’s manager: “Paul McGuinness asked me what was our budget? I told him how much we had and he said that they’d match it from their side to make this happen. They needed to put more resources in, a slightly bigger PA, and more security.” “Without question U2’s crew were a huge part of it,” explains O’Donoghue. “They were known as the Cork Mafia. Joe O’Herilhy was the guy who first did sound for U2 in the Arcadia. Joe also brought along the people who had been working with him in the Arcadia.” “The Cork Mafia was Joe, Timmy Buckley, Tom Mullally and Sammy O’Sullivan. Steve Iredale was from Kiltimagh in Co. Mayo but he was happy to identify as a Corkman as part of the Cork Mafia and that core crew grew with U2 from very early days to them becoming a stadium band in America.” “U2 thought that it was a good way of honouring the city and honouring the road crew that came from the city because Cork was the first place that really welcomed them and took to the band.” A few weeks before the Lark Wilson told his boss in RTÉ the plan. “I went to Cathal McCabe who was the head of Radio 2 at the time and told him the story. We hightailed it down to Cork and met with the City manager. He said that we would get the full cooperation of the Council and that he’d keep it secret.” “We then went and met the local Garda Superintendent and he said that we’d have whatever we needed. So only a few executives from City Hall and the Chief Super knew and that was it. We were determined to keep it a secret because we wanted it to be a genuine surprise. If word got out it could turn into a shambles which we couldn’t control.” Plans progressed but the production was a far cry from outdoor gigs of today. “It was a basic show, we didn’t have a readymade stage so we brought in two 40-foot trailers,” says Wilson. “We got the loan of a forklift and the crowd control barriers came from the guards in Union Quay, we got a few caravans for dressing rooms and we took the power supply off an ESB pole,” says O’Donoghue laughing. “It wasn’t a generator that you’d bring to a gig or an outside broadcast now. I was involved in the production of the gig and even I didn’t know about U2 until very late the night before.” “We had no budget, so I stayed overnight in one of the caravans as security to look after the stage. Ian gave me a mobile phone,” says O’Donoghue smiling. “It was one of the first I’d ever seen, it was like a concrete block.” Arthur and journalist Dave Hannigan was a teenage music fan who went to the Lee Fields to see one of his favourite local bands. “Being from Togher, Cypress, Mine! were our local heroes,” remembers Hannigan. “Their guitarist Ian Olney was a Togher boy. You could actually see them walking around Glasheen.” Hannigan says the lack of other attractions in Cork helped ensure that gigs like the Lark naturally became big-deal events. “Most of us were at the Lark that day because so little else ever happened in Cork in the mid-80s,” recalls Hannigan. “People who weren’t there can’t ever grasp how grim and unpromising Cork was for teens in the 1980s. Free gigs like the Lark couldn’t be missed because they were such rare dollops of what passed for glamour in our humdrum lives.” Even the Cork bands on the bill were kept in the dark about U2. “Nobody knew, even we didn’t know. Ian Wilson ran the gig and had an embargo on anyone knowing,” remembers Mark Healy, Cypress, Mine!’s drummer. Ciarán Ó Tuama, Cypress, Mine!’s singer, nods in agreement with Healy: “On the morning of the gig I was out in our garden which was directly across the river and I heard the recognisable drum sound of Larry Mullen. Afterwards I realised that it had been Sammy O’Sullivan soundchecking Mullen’s drums.” Cypress, Mine! and the other bands played and when Freddie White finished his set Dave Fanning went on stage. “Dave told the crowd that it they hang about, there might be something else happening, that the gig was not quite finished yet,” recalls Wilson. “It was nearly 6 o’clock. There was a good 30-minute gap after Freddie finished his set so a lot of people started walking away towards the city,” says Wilson. “U2 were up in the Angler’s Rest pub waiting for the call. The Carrigrohane Road was closed and suddenly you saw flashing lights coming up the long straight road. You could hear sirens and you could see two Garda motorcycle outriders paring down the road with a bus behind them. A wave of people came running back. It was quite an entrance and out they leaped.” Dave Hannigan still remembers it clearly: “Rumours began sweeping through the crowd. But, come on, U2 had just played Live Aid and had kind of stolen the show, the idea they were going to clamber up onto the back of a truck in the Lee Fields to play for us, for free, was preposterous.” “When it happened, we all went from trying to be too cool for school standing down the back to immediately rushing to get close to the stage like demented boyband fans,” says Hannigan. “We were too young to go to Dublin for gigs so this was seeing your favourite band surprise you, like a personal gift.” O’Donoghue lights up as he describes the scene: “The truck was on the road and Bono was facing out towards the river and Our Lady’s Hospital was high above on the other bank. It was U2 on the back of a truck on the banks of the Lee. It was just extraordinary.” “People were sitting around having a nice relaxing afternoon and the next minute the biggest band in the world walked out,” laughs Healy. “The whole place went absolutely crazy.” U2 launched into early single ‘11 O’Clock Tick Tock’ before Bono told the crowd: “800 years for you, 8 years for us, Cork is the real capital.” People fainted and were pulled from the crowd. ‘I Will Follow’ came next. “This field feels like the Arcadia Ballroom,” said Bono. “Let’s make it dance like the Arcadia,” he shouted. ‘Sunday Bloody Sunday’, ‘Pride (In the Name of Love)’, ‘October’, ‘New Year’s Day’, ‘Gloria’ were all played before Freddie White returned to duet with Bono on a cover of ‘Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door’. During the song Bono called for an anti-apartheid banner in the crowd to be brought up on stage. They ended with live favourite ‘40’ and as the crowd sang out the refrain, ‘How long will we sing this song?’ the band left the stage and were gone. Two years later U2 returned to Cork bringing their all-conquering Joshua Tree tour to Páirc Uí Chaoimh. On his radio show the night before the concert Dave Fanning said: “In my seven or eight years working with Radio 2, there was no question about it but the finest most exciting moment I had was teatime on Sunday, August 25, 1985, when I’m genuinely convinced that 75-90% of the audience hadn’t got a clue that U2 were going to come on and play for free at the Lark.” That night he was joined by the Cork Mafia. Joe O’Herlihy talked about the Lark. “It was great actually for the band to just off the bat come back and without a shadow of a doubt commit to actually doing this thing,” said O’Herlihy. “It was an amazing feeling that the band came in, no strings attached, and just went straight onto the back of a lorry.” O’Donoghue reflects on the day: “U2 didn’t need to do it at that stage in their career. It was a thank you to Dave Fanning and Ian Wilson certainly, but it was also a thank you to the people of Cork and Joe and the Cork Mafia.” Ian Wilson sums up the day. “The crowd were in great form and all the Cork bands did their stuff. Freddie did very well,” says Wilson. He smiles, “U2 were big and they were about to make the leap from big to enormous. They were about to become a massive band. It was just the time to get them