After decades of finely balanced procrastination, the U2 guitarist The Edge has officially become Irish.
The British-born 63-year-old was conferred with Irish citizenship on Monday, 62 years after moving to Ireland, in a step he said was “long overdue”.
U2 may be a symbol of Ireland, and The Edge’s woolly caps may verge on national treasure status, but David Howell Evans had not been a citizen until now.
I’m a little tardy with the paperwork,” he told reporters after a conferring ceremony in Killarney, County Kerry. “I’ve been living in Ireland now since I was one year old. But the time is right. And I couldn’t be more proud of my country for all that it represents and all that it is doing.”
Evans was born in England to Welsh parents but has considered himself Irish – and Ireland his home – since he was a toddler.
He formed U2 in 1976 with three Dublin classmates – Paul Hewson, better known as Bono, Larry Mullen Jr and Adam Clayton – and went on to record Sunday Bloody Sunday and other songs that became Irish anthems.
Evans, however, never got around to applying for citizenship. “Honestly, there were many moments in the past when I could have done it with just the form to be filled out but I’m happy it’s now, it feels more significant,” he said.
Wearing an Irish tricolour clip, Evans swore an oath of loyalty and fidelity to the Irish state with hundreds of other newly created citizens in the Gleneagle arena – one of several back-to-back ceremonies that will confer citizenship on 7,500 people on Monday and Tuesday.
