My Irish husband Tony and I have recently moved to Birmingham, UK and I am writing a weekly blog explaining Europe to my fellow Americans. This is the entry about Sir Bob and us. You can find the others here.

At the British Library in London I picked up a flyer announcing an upcoming reading of William Butler Yeats' poetry by Irish actress Sinead Cusack and tucked it into my diary for future reference.

Still debating whether or not to go, I saw in The Guardian that Sinead would be joined by two other readers: actor Rupert Graves and activist/singer/Irishman Sir Robert Geldof. Now that is worth the Birmingham-to-London trip. Even my Dublin-born hubby agreed to go.

When booking our tickets, I asked if Sir Bob was really going to show. 'He has been a bit busy, hasn't he?' laughed the operator, understating his ubiquitous presence on British media that week promoting his 'Live8' concert. 'Will there be protesters?' I asked, hopefully. 'I don't think so. He's done things for us before and it's always fine,' she added.

So Tony and I ate our lunch of turkey sandwiches and mini-Snickers on the Chiltern Railway special. We got there a bit early and soaked up the rare June evening sun outside the Library.

Tony saw him first. There was Sir Bob, walking alone, talking on his mobile, heading into the building for his next gig. Black cotton top, white cotton pants. Does he own a comb?

Our vantage point in the last row gave us a good view of the crowd, a mix of little-old-lady book-club members and young groupies. Were they here for Sir Bob or Rupert?

The hostess introduced the other participants and then Geldof by saying, 'We called him because we felt sorry for him. He seemed to have nothing to do this week. So we said, "Come along, Bob, and read some Yeats."' He looked down at his black binder modestly, laughing along with the crowd.

From up in peanut heaven we could see lovely Sinead's dark roots. Her light Irish accent was the perfect touch for the brief early love poems:

That only God, my dear,

Could love you for yourself alone

And not your yellow hair.

Rupert's upper class British whine was suitably sombre for 'Friends':

And what of her that took

All till my youth was gone

With scarce a pitying look?

But Sir Bob's low-key, south-Dublin nasal tones gave the perfect emotional intensity to Yeats' paeans to his life-long unrequited love, Maud Gonne:

I have spread my dreams under your feet;

Tread softly because you tread upon my dreams.

How many loved your moments of glad grace,

And loved your beauty with love false or true,

But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you.

But I'm partial to Dublin men falling hopelessly in love with their women anyway.

Then came the section devoted to Yeats' political poems. Geldof gently mourned:

Romantic Ireland's dead and gone.

It's with O'Leary in the grave.

And lamented,

But the fools caught it,

Wore it in the world's eyes

As though they'd wrought it.

Then, leaning forward, elbows on knees, he repeated, slowly, intensely:

All changed, changed utterly:

A terrible beauty is born.

You could feel Yeats' passion for the rift that turned Ireland from one of the 'Lesser Colonies' of Britain into an independent, intense, emotional republic.

As they left the stage, Sir Bob graciously allowed the ladies to exit first, and Tony said, 'C'mon. I want to see this guy.'

I assumed he would be surrounded by hangers-on and groupies, and we didn't have anything for him to sign, but I followed my Irish husband's lead. There was Bob, in a corner, just one or two people around him. As the blonde guy monopolising him moved away, Bob went to leave, and Tony moved in.

'Bob. I'm from Dublin.

Smiling, more grizzled and grey than we are, even though about the same age, Sir Bob stopped and shook both our hands.

'That was fabulous. Congratulations,' Tony said.

I added, unnecessarily, 'I did my research on Yeats. Your "Changed Utterly" was perfect. I could hear old Willy rattling in his grave.'

'Well, thanks,' he said. And moved on.

As we walked out, I said to Tony, 'When Pope Benedict canonises him, you can tell your granddaughter that you shook his hand.'

On the train back I quizzed Tony about his fellow Dub.

'He went to Blackrock College in South Dublin.'

'So he's uppity?'

'Well, I think he actually was expelled from Blackrock College.'

'What did he do before he started saving the world?'

He hung around clubs in Dublin and started the Boomtown Rats in 1978. They were punk, sort of. They had two number one hits.

'Hum them.'

'"I Don't Like Mondays", and I can't think of the other one. Then he went to London and hung around with other guys. And then he saw this documentary about the starving in Ethiopia and so he did Band Aid.'

'Bono is from north Dublin. Did they know each other before?'

'In his book Geldof says that Bono came over to him at an event and said, "My name is Bono", back before anyone had heard of U2.'

'What do the Irish think of Geldof?'

'Well, secretly we're proud of him. But we're a nation of begrudgers. So we always have to say, "Aaah, y'know, he's just a bollocks."'

When we got back to Birmingham, Tony texted his son in Ireland to tell him that he'd met Sir Bob.

FYI: If you would like to read more Yeats, I recommend WB Yeats: Selected Poetry, edited by A Norman Jeffares, who died recently. It's all the best stuff and the introduction is a good overview of the poet's life and loves.

KDixonDonnelly

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