Lord Henry Mountcharles

Ireland’s most infamous aristocrat, the right honourable Henry Conyngham, Earl of Mountcharles – or Lord Henry Mountcharles, as he’s more commonly known – strides purposefully into the bar of Dublin’s Buswell’s Hotel, looking fairly drawn and stressed-out. It’s not so much to do with the upcoming Madonna gig at Slane Castle (though he wearily confides that, “You simply would not believe the amount of stuff involved in putting on a show of that nature”), more the fact that two elderly friends have passed away in the last few days.

“I was at a funeral yesterday and I’m going to another removal later this evening,” the 52-year-old sighs sadly. “I’ve got to be back on the road to Slane by 4 o’clock so hopefully that’ll give us enough time.”
Tall, thin, impeccably suited and badly in need of a haircut, Lord Mountcharles ever so slightly resembles the actor Jeremy Irons – but sounds exactly like him. His accent is English upper crust, authoritative, to good manners born. His eyes are bright and alert. Born and raised in Ireland, but educated in England and America, he’s an instantly likeable sort of guy and the quintessential Anglo-Irish peer. Except for the fact that he’s also a rock & roll promoter. Or perhaps because of the fact that he’s also a rock & roll promoter.
Somebody once described the dilemma of being Anglo-Irish as ‘being considered Irish in England, English in Ireland, but never fully accepted in either country’. Mountcharles understands that particular problem better than most. Since returning home to live in Slane in the mid-70’s, he’s led a very chequered public life – and had to overcome a lot of prejudices along the way.
Google him and you’ll get 1040 hits. However, this writer spent a good two hours trawling through the web and, aside from finding his name in peerage listings and various news stories from over the years (‘Lord To Run in Dail Election’, ‘Mountcharles Confirms Rolling Stones For Slane’, ‘Henry Mountcharles Devastated By Slane Fire’ etc.), still didn’t learn very much about the man.
And that’s what we’re here to rectify. “You can ask me anything you want,” he informs me, sipping his coffee and straightening up in his chair. “But if we stray into any areas I don’t want to talk about, I’ll certainly let you know.”

OT: Could you just tell me a little about your background?

LHMC: Sure. I was born in Dublin in 1951, in the Rotunda. And I spent my youth at Slane. I went to prep school in Co Meath, aged seven, at Headford. And I then went to Harrow public school in England. There was about a year gap after school, and then I went to Harvard.

OT: Was yours a very privileged upbringing?

LHMC: In many senses it was, because in those days . . . I was born in 1951 – so you’re talking about right through the 50’s into the early 60’s – and my parents did lead an existence which very much revolved around a sort of Upstairs Downstairs scenario. In that, when we were very young, we had a nanny and there was a housekeeper, there were housemaids and there was a butler. In fact the only book I’ve ever written I dedicated to my housekeeper who was a wonderful lady from Kerry called Mary Brown. And the castle itself involved just a lot of people other than my parents – or indeed myself and my two brothers. For example, I didn’t dine with my parents until I was 12 years of age – we were fed and foddered separately [chuckles]. But it was interesting. The domestic staff were a community within themselves, and we were very much part of that as kids.

OT: What was your book about?

LHMC: The book was called Public Space, Private Life. It was published by Faber in 1988 or ‘89, and it was partially serialised in the Irish Independent. Basically it was about the first decade at the castle, starting around 1976 when I came back home, and it ended up with the David Bowie concert in 1987.

OT: Are you married?

LHMC: Yes. I’ve been married twice and I have four children. Three children by my first marriage and one with Iona. So they span in age from 29 to 13.

OT: I’d say the 13-year-old really enjoys the rock & roll aspect of the castle.

LHMC: Well actually, they all do. But yes, my little daughter is very excited about Madonna coming to play. But all my kids love it. In fact, I started doing the shows in Slane in 1981 – Thin Lizzy and U2 – and that’s rather a long time ago. And my kids have grown up through it. I mean, I can remember my second son bouncing on his bed in 1982 singing ‘(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction’. Which is a kind of interesting visual image [smiles]. But they would have a very substantial influence now over my thinking as to who would play the venue, and have obviously been involved in working on the concerts – all of them, including little Tamara – in sort of various degrees. So they know a great deal about it and are very involved in it.
And what is interesting and nice for us personally is that every time come a concert there’s a sort of gathering of the family tribes – cousins and nephews and nieces and children and what have you. For us, that’s part of the joy of the event and sort of alleviates some of the angst and tension that you always have in the run-in to a show.

OT: I presume you started the gigs to pay for the upkeep of Slane Castle.

LHMC:It was a combination of things really. The castle is an expensive thing to maintain, and of course it became catastrophically expensive after the fire in 1991. It took us a decade to rebuild it and, unfortunately, I had the wrong building insured. Beauparc House, which is very nearby, I had insured to the hilt because I’d rebuilt that in the mid-80’s and I didn’t expect to be hit by the same problem twice.

OT: What actually caused the fire?

LHMC: Em . . . I never discuss that. Suffice it to say that everything accidental, as far as I’m concerned, was eliminated.

OT: Are you saying it was arson?
LHMC: OK, I did say at the beginning of the interview that if we go into certain areas . . .[frowns]. I don’t wish to discuss it any further. For a myriad of reasons.
You had a bit of a run-in recently with the Slane locals over the Madonna gig. They were saying that you had given your word that there would never again be a gig on a Sunday after the riots at Bob Dylan in 1984 – and that you’ve now gone back on it.
Well, a lot of that, frankly, I did anticipate. On the basis that the last time there was a show on a Sunday was in 1984 when Bob Dylan played and, yes, there were very serious problems. There were very serious problems actually the night before the show, not on the day of the show itself. And there were several factors that led to those problems but the most central and crucial one was a matter of policing. And the way in which events of this nature are policed now is just so radically different that really the potential – I mean, any big gathering there’s always a potential risk – but really the potential major risks no longer exist.
But I knew that people’s memories were very long – as indeed is mine. I was in the middle of the row when it happened – or rather at the height of it. And you could anticipate that night that something was going to blow. And I think I’m correct in saying that there were only six Gardai on the main street in Slane. The place was totally overloaded and public houses had extensions. So in other words it was a pretty explosive mixture, it was a situation awaiting to happen.

OT: Have you taken steps to improve the security situation for the Madonna gig?
LHMC: No incidents of the kind that occurred in 1984 will be allowed under any circumstances this year. Nowadays, the level of planning and co-operation between the local authority, the fire services, the civil defence and, most specifically, the Gardai is so much more sophisticated. I mean, you’ve got a body of experience going back 23 years now and everybody knows where they’re at.
Now as far as the locals are concerned, of course what nobody ever hears about are the people who actually enjoy the shows, the goodwill and the positive aspects, because it doesn’t necessarily make terribly colourful press. But that has always been there. One of the critics of this year’s show is somebody who didn’t actually live in Slane in 1984 so therefore had no direct experience of what happened or indeed what caused the problems. The only poll ever taken amongst the locality was restricted to householders – and wasn’t conducted by me – and the concerts got over 90% support.
So these things must be taken in perspective. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t take on board all the things people have to say, particularly in the locality.

OT: Have you met Madonna yet?

LHMC:I haven’t, no.

OT: Have you spoken to her?

LHMC: I haven’t spoken to her yet, but I will. But obviously I’ve spoken to the people around her. But I’ll look forward to that conversation. She’s an intriguing persona.

OT: Are you a fan?

LHMC: I like her music. I have Ray Of Light in the car and I really like some of her early stuff. I mean, she started in the mid-’80s, around the time we had U2 recording The Unforgettable Fire in the castle. And she is iconic.

OT: Rather ironic that The Unforgettable Fire was recorded in the castle – and then a few years later you actually had one.

LHMC: Very, very weird. I don’t know whether you’ve looked at the album cover but on the front there’s a ruined castle – which is not Slane – and on the back it says, ‘Recorded in Slane Castle’. And that was put together in 1984. It was very strange.
And there’s something even weirder from a family point of view. My wife’s name is Iona and she has a first cousin called Iona. And she was married to the late Duke of Argyll. So two first cousins called Iona marry two men who live in castles, both of which nearly burnt to the ground in the month of November. Now if that isn’t fucking spooky. . .[mock shudders]. Plus I had a premonition about the fire, so there’s all kinds of weird stuff.

OT: Do you believe in that kind of thing? Premonitions and ESP and so forth?

LHMC: I do to a certain degree. I got in a . . .[pauses]. Em, I have no problem because I stand over the story. Not only that but I’ve actually seen something that I can only describe as a UFO. And I was sane and sober when it happened!

OT: A UFO? Where was this?

LHMC: It was, of all places, in Surrey. In the ‘70s. And I have three other witnesses as well. To such an extent that I actually rang up RAF Northford, I think, to report it. And then they started asking me what my name was and I just thought, ‘OK, here we go’ [smiles]. But I did meet somebody under the most peculiar circumstances, actually at Slane, a few years later. He was a pretty heavyweight, retired American industrialist and I told this story at breakfast, just before a shooting party, and he went very pale. He took me aside afterwards and he said, ‘I’ve never told anyone else but I saw exactly what you described in Arizona’. So there’s something, as far as I’m concerned, that’s not properly explained.

OT: So do you believe in aliens?

LHMC: Well, I think that the extension from believing that there are Unexplained Flying Objects takes you into believing in aliens. But I’ve never spent a great deal of my life thinking about that, bar the fact that when I was working at Faber’s I did edit science fiction. And we have in our own lifetime seen things that are really astounding. Fact is quickly catching up on science fiction. If you look at guys like Arthur C. Clarke. I think before you and I are ten feet under that there’ll be wondrous things happening. There’ll probably be some pretty horrific things too, but that’s another story.

OT: Did you use any drugs during your time at Harrow?

LHMC: Not in Harrow, but I certainly did in Harvard.

OT: Did you take any acid, by any chance?

LHMC: No, I never went anywhere near acid. For one very simple reason. Quite early on in my time in Harvard there was a guy on acid who threw himself out of a window and broke both his arms and legs. That was rather dramatic and I thought, ‘I’m not going there’. But I did smoke quite a lot of dope, particularly during my first year. But my dope consumption declined rapidly in second year as I had to make sure that all my grades got uplifted. You can only indulge yourself in chaos for so long. But since then, really not at all. Particularly when it comes to harder drugs. I’ve seen some awful damage, some of it very, very close to home.

OT: I presume you’re talking about when Guns N’ Roses came to play Slane!

LHMC: Ha! No, a bit before that. I mean, people I’ve known – and some of them are no longer alive. So hard drugs as such is not something I really want to go near or want my children to go near.

OT: Still though, you’re pretty much in the rock & roll business and there’s usually a lot of drugs around.

LHMC: Well, I mean, if you’re asking me if since I’ve left Harvard have I taken any drugs then the answer is ‘Yes’. But I’ve only tried cocaine once in my life and I liked it so much I thought I’d never touch it again – for that simple reason. So you know, without putting too blunt a point about it, when a very close relative dies at a very young age it does shock the system. I think the fact that cocaine is quote-unquote “a fashionable drug” is a very dangerous place for it to be. Because I don’t think people realise how terrifyingly addictive it is. And some people, of course, are more prone to those kinds of addictions than others. I’ve seen people very close to us bury their children.

OT: Have you witnessed any backstage panic attacks striking any of the artists who’ve played at Slane over the years?
LHMC: Everyone reacts very differently when they’re going to go on stage, because I mean it is a hell of a thing. Slane is a very dramatic place to play. When you go out on that stage, it’s just a massive audience. For example, Springsteen was actually rather freaked when he went out, and that has appeared later in a biography of him. Yet, the night before . . . He was so intent on putting on a stunning performance – which he did, an absolutely stunning performance – that he actually did the entire set the night before in the castle. There were only six of us watching so it was rather special.
But the coolest in terms of just hanging out backstage was David Bowie. We were literally just sitting in a couple of deck chairs discussing third level education, of all things. Now don’t ask me how we got there, but it’s clearly fixed in my mind. And I was sort of beginning to wonder how I would terminate the conversation because it was time for him to go on. And he just looked at his watch and said, ‘Ah, I think I’d better go on’. And he just got up, wandered across the little bridge and did his thing. I was very impressed. He was so cool, calm and collected. But others . . . I mean, Guns N’ Roses was interesting because we couldn’t get Axl Rose to go on.

OT: He kept the crowd waiting for about four hours, didn’t he?

LHMC: Ah, it was just a head-wrecker! And you asked whether my kids were involved, and I remember Alex, my eldest, and I sort of sitting down with Slash saying, ‘Look, please can you get this guy on site so we can get things happening!’ So that was a very different contrast with Bowie. The U2 gigs were all kind of special as well.

OT: Were you around Slane when they recorded the album there?

LHMC: Oh yeah, I was living there. Very much so. So we were all living together.

OT: Were you banging on the floor of your bedroom going, ‘Keep the bloody noise down!’?

LHMC: Ha, ha! Well there was a lot of noise in the building! Paul McGuinness really wondered whether I knew what I was letting myself in for. But it was a lovely period. It was also a lovely period of my life. I split up with my first wife in 1982 and I didn’t meet Iona until, gosh, it was October ‘84. So it was lovely having lots of people in the building because it’s a pretty big building to live in by yourself.
So obviously there’s a close relationship there. I mean, one of my closest buddies is Adam. And in addition to that, Adam is our young daughter’s godfather. So we would see a lot of each other. And I know all of the band and I like all of them. They’ve been part of the whole Slane thing from the start. And those two U2 gigs were extremely emotional. It was emotional for Bono because of his father’s death. But it was enormously emotional for us because they’d lived in the building, and then The Unforgettable Fire, and then the real fire, and then the decade of reconstruction.

OT: I presume they were in touch immediately when the castle burnt down.

LHMC: Oh yeah. God! It was more interesting to see who didn’t bother picking up the phone. But the band were pretty freaked themselves. It is a pretty bloody weird thing to record an album in the building, to call the album The Unforgettable Fire, and then the bloody place nearly burns to the ground – and us in it!

OT: You stood in Louth as a Dail candidate in the 1992 general election and polled a tenth of the vote [4,461 first preferences]. Do you still harbour political ambitions?

LHMC: The answer to that is where those political ambitions are now is a very good bloody question to which I do not entirely know the answer.

OT: Last Sunday’s News of the World ran a story saying that if John Bruton takes up the post of the EU’s US ambassador and resigns his Dail seat, then you’ll stand again in Meath.

LHMC: Well, I saw the News of the World. The guy was looking to talk to me and I was [raises inverted fingers] “unavailable.” Ha, ha! No, but I actually genuinely was unavailable – there’s been so much heavy stuff happening with funerals and all that. And the last thing I wanted to do was think about politics with a gig coming up. When I first came home in the mid-’70s. . . I mean, I’ve always been very political and interested in politics because it is at the core of so much that happens. And also it is a fascinating process because of the quicksands involved. So when I first came home I was clearly told by a lot of people close to me that, ‘Look, you know, you’re Anglo-Irish and a Prod and, worse than that, you’ve got a title so it might be advisable just to keep your opinions to yourself’. Ha, ha!
And actually I thought that was fine initially but, quite frankly, there were so many things happening that I really felt that I couldn’t. What people tend to forget because it is quite a long time ago and the atmospherics were very different, is that when we ran the first show at Slane in 1981 – that was the year of the hunger strikes. All around my area, particularly around Louth and North County Meath, there were black flags hanging from flagpoles, there were mock funerals taking place. It was a very edgy period. I got some really unpleasant mail and threats and all kinds of stuff. Slogans on the wall and that kind of thing.

OT: You joined Fine Gael when Garret Fitzgerald took the party leadership, didn’t you?

LHMC: Yes. When Fitzgerald took over, I then felt there was a political entity with which I could identify. And I certainly wasn’t the only one – a lot of people went into Fine Gael at that period. But there were a whole lot of social issues, things that evolved around the constitutional crusade – divorce and so on. A lot of issues that in a sense have now been put to bed, which is what makes it rather intriguing. So that to me was a new way of looking at politics, and it was also a way of absorbing someone who feels 100% Irish and yet had been treated by a certain section of the larger community as a foreigner in his own land.

OT: How heavy did that get?

LHMC: That was quite rough at one stage. I knew who I was, but I knew other people had a very fixed idea of who I was. But of course, I do accept now that I found it less easy earlier on because I was on the receiving end of quite a lot of abuse, but I understand now in a sense that a lot of that was governed by whom I was perceived to be by the circumstances of my birth, which are not necessarily the norm. And so there was the Little Lord Fauntleroy shit I had to put up with. And it’s quite interesting because I talk to my children about it and they have a very much different experience than I did. It’s easier.

OT: Do you think the Irish are a nation of begrudgers?

LHMC:That’s asked so many times. There is an element – I dunno where it comes from – of begrudgery, which is actually very unattractive and not something we should be proud of. Yeah, it’s there – but frankly, so what? Ha, ha! [laughs heartily].

OT: What’s your opinion of Enda Kenny?

LHMC: I was a little unhappy – and this is not necessarily totally centred on him – because Fine Gael tried to entice me onto the Euro ticket during the last European elections, and I did regard that I received rather, em . . . the polite way of putting it is ‘inappropriate treatment’. And Enda was obviously in my perception involved in that. But we’ve had lunch together since that happened and that was amicable. They put in a damn good performance in the local and the Europeans, so as distinct from looking not a possibility as a future Taoiseach, he now does deserve due consideration. But we’re still two years out and I do regard Berie Ahern as a very, very shrewd operator.

OT: The most Machiavellian of them all. . .

LHMC: Yes – and Charlie [Haughey] certainly held that view. I mean, the odd thing – and people might not necessarily understand this – but whilst I was a great supporter of Garret Fitzgerald, and I am actually still a member of Fine Gael, I really admired Charlie Haughey in some respects. I found him a gas character.

OT: Do you think he should be prosecuted for political corruption?

LHMC: Em . . . [long pause]. I really do pass on that one. I think if the things that have come to light had come to light earlier, and he was in more robust health, I think the answer would’ve been probably yes. Now, I don’t know. There’s so many things out there, some of which I know about and some of which I don’t, but I think an awful lot of people have got away with an awful lot. And this is getting into very dangerous territory because it’s not an excuse, but they were very different times. And if he was put behind bars, there should be an awful lot of other people there with him. I think I’ll leave it at that.

OT: You delved into band management a couple of years ago with [Sony-signed] Dara. Is it true that he’s your nephew?

LHMC: No. People have asked me that before because apparently there’s a physical resemblance between us. The only relationship that we have is that he actually does go out with my daughter. The combination of the physical resemblance and the fact that he’s my daughter’s boyfriend may have led some people to think that he was my nephew. No, he’s not.

OT: Is music management a serious ambition of yours? Or was it just a favour to Dara because you have connections in the business?

LHMC: Well, that’s a few questions. I think that Dara is an immensely talented guy and I also have had a feeling for some time – which I know is shared by many others – that something fresh and new is needed on the musical scene. And apart from the obvious success globally of a band like U2 and I’m not . . . because I don’t want to have Louis Walsh ringing me up – or more ringing the press up – and saying how dare I say such things. And then on the other hand you then have a band like Westlife, who’ve been enormously successful – and I admire Westlife, I might add.

OT: Would you have them play at Slane?

LHMC: Em, well, Brian isn’t in the band any longer! You see, Brian McFadden and Kerry Katona got married in the castle, and that was the first big event that we had inside the building after the fire. Which was kind of special. But anyway, as far as Dara was concerned, and is concerned, his music is very different. And what I also liked – although I haven’t heard his recent material – is that he used an awful lot of orchestration. And, for example, he did some orchestration on ‘Sweetest Thing’ for U2.

OT: If the Pope wanted to say mass at Slane, as a Prod, would you have him?

LHMC: Divil a bother! Ha, ha! Yeah, of course! I mean, the interesting thing is that Slane is so steeped in history. And Saint Patrick lit the paschal fire at Slane and was then summoned to Tara. So last Sunday was the holy day at Slane. And we have our local saint called Saint Erc [pronounced Irk]. Actually, my mother admitted to me yesterday at this funeral that we went to, that she nearly considered calling me ‘Erc’! Ha, ha! Lord Erc doesn’t really sound the business, does it? But even for the Pope we would have to stick to our 80,000 capacity. But why not?
People tend to forget about how the whole thing sort of started. If I go back to the first show, I looked at what was happening at Knebworth. . . And every 15th of August when I was a kid there was this holy day at Slane. And we used to have a Gaelic football match and sideshows and all that kind of jazz. And it was a great sort of local public event. And I wanted to bring it into a contemporary context. So this may sound a bit strange but, in a sense, a pagan festival that then turned into a Christian festival ultimately turned into a rock & roll festival.
And another thing that might interest people is that one of the earliest recorded Gaelic football matches in Ireland was actually played on the concert site. So Slane has been the scene of mass gatherings, for good reasons, for centuries.

OT: What about the Battle of the Boyne?

LHMC: Ha, ha! We might forget the Battle of the Boyne. That was a little bit further down the river!

OT: Do you have a motto in life?

LHMC: ‘You have to move on’ is my motto in life. I’ve had two terrible things that have happened in my life. One was the murder of the gamekeeper at Slane, Tim Kidman, and the other was the fire. Those are the two things revolving from Slane. And, however difficult, you have to learn to move on from that. You know, if I got too tied up with all the wonderful paintings and pictures that burnt, or too drawn into the depths of despair by Tim’s death . . . you know, you’d go nuts! So you have to move on.

Madonna plays Slane Castle on Sunday August 29