Culture
28 Feb 20

Waterford Institute Technology celebrates 40th anniversary of U2's on-campus performance

The contract outlines that U2 charged £300 for the gig and requested sandwiches, beer and minerals to be provided in the dressing room.

As Waterford Institute of Technology (WIT), formerly Waterford Regional Technical College (WRTC), celebrates its 50^th anniversary this year, there’s another important anniversary – the day U2 came to play in the WRTC canteen.

To mark the date, Eoin Ronayne, now Deputy General Secretary at Fórsa trade union, who booked the band on behalf of the Student’s Union, has shared the original contract for the booking on behalf of the Students’ Union with WIT.

Ronayne, though not a student at the college, was a Waterford native involved in the arts and a local pirate radio station with the names and connections in Dublin to book rock bands on behalf of the Students’ Union.

The band have yet to respond to a request from WIT to return to Waterford for a gig for the same fee of £300.

“They were only up and coming and had only released one record. The gig sold out and there were 400 at it. A few months later they played the Showboat in Waterford and only 200 attended”, Ronayne recalls.

Ronayne didn’t realise how successful U2 would become, and he ended up going to see the Horslips in Dublin that night. But he does have the evidence of the night U2 came to town.