U2 celebrate 50th anniversary at the school where they formed

From that kitchen in Rosemount Avenue, U2 became the world’s biggest rock band.

Anthems like With Or Without You, One and Beautiful Day have always sounded majestic yet personal; powered by The Edge’s cascading guitar tone and Bono’s lyrics which, for all their proselytising, remain grounded in a belief in humanity.

They made a stylistic swerve in the 1990s, embracing electronics, dance music and irony on the albums Achtung Baby, Zooropa and Pop.

Along the way, they reinvented stadium concerts with the Zoo TV tour, whose stage was crammed full of multimedia screens and satellite feeds, while Bono made nightly prank calls to the White House.

The Edge, real name Dave Evans, puts their longevity down to a lack of formal training.

“It’s been a guiding light, in some ways, the limitations of the band,” he explains.

“We’re in this place where, musically, we never know what’s about to happen. It can fall apart or it can become something extraordinary.

“And that’s the beauty of U2.”

Back on stage at Mount Temple, Bono paid tribute to his alma matter for allowing the band to flourish.

The support of teachers allowed them to realise that “maybe all we needed was around us, just under our feet,” he said.

And he dedicated the performance to school councillor Jack Heaslip, who later became a “travelling pastor” on the band’s tours, before his death from motor neurone disease in 2015.

U2 then closed their set with an orchestral arrangement of One, assisted by students from Ireland’s Music Generation education programme, which they helped fund and establish 15 years ago.