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We have always found the Irish a bit odd. They refuse to be English.

I think Paul McGuinness and U2 created the Irish music industry. It certainly wasn't there before that.

I know so many Irish musicians. They're all over, because there has been so much emigration from Ireland. Like the Jews.

Ireland and America, music-wise, are very closely related. The Irish came over with their fiddles in hand, and you can hear it in the bluegrass and rockabilly. I love it when music from different countries combine.

I think now, more than anytime I can remember, bands are sounding pretty similar whether they're English or American, from Manchester or London... or Leeds or Welsh or Irish.

We play our Irish songs a bit more loosely.

But more than anything else, for the British folks Irish people were all terrorists. So when we went to Britain, it was always a lot of resistance to U2. And that's why we came to America.

Growing up, I was brought up around Irish music, Irish traditions.

The Ireland I now inhabit is one that these Irish contemporaries have helped to imagine.

I feel warm toward my Irish side, but I don't know the country or the people. Hearing a traditional Irish fiddle, I feel very connected to Ireland, but that's a nostalgia many people feel who aren't Irish at all.