When Henry Mount Charles, who died on June 18th at the age of 74, first reframed his ancestral home of Slane Castle as a signature rock venue in 1981, it must have been more in hope than expectation.
Ireland was then a rock’n’roll backwater rarely included on the touring schedule of the big international acts of the day, as it had a severe shortage of decent-sized venues. The backdrop of violence and the hunger strikes in the North did not help, but the Republic had succeeded in making itself a dispiriting place on its own.
Fintan O’Toole, in his book We Don’t Know Ourselves, outlined the grim picture. “The number of unemployed people had doubled over the course of the 1970s. Mass emigration was back. There was a balance of payments crisis and government debt was out of control ... The whole project of making Ireland a normal Western European country was in deep trouble.”
Yet there must have been some optimism in the music business, as in 1981 Slane had to compete with music festivals in Macroom, Co Cork, Ballisodare, Co Sligo, Castlebar, Co Mayo, and Lisdoonvarna, Co Clare. Most of those events were headlined by Irish acts, however – as indeed was Slane. Thin Lizzy were nearing the end of their career at the top, but supporting them that day in August was a four-piece on the rise from Dublin: U2.
Although only about 25,000 people attended the first Slane concert, its success paved the way for future events and for Henry Mount Charles’ emergence as a public figure of note. Slane’s natural amphitheatre could safely accommodate numbers much greater than the modest first event. In addition, it was near Dublin and could be reached by bus or car in a relatively short time.
Rock music is a business. The bigger the audience, the easier it is to attract leading acts. Pay them the money and they will come. And so it proved, with the likes of The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen happy to park their caravans down by the Boyne.
Springsteen’s concert in front of an estimated 65,000 fans marked an important shift in his career: it was the first time he and the E Street Band played in front of a stadium-sized outdoor audience. It would be the first of many lucrative concerts.
As the profile of Slane grew, Mount Charles lapped it up. Although concerts were generally partnerships with the likes of MCD Productions and Aiken Promotions, Henry was the public face of the event. He was no less a performer than those artists he welcomed to Slane. Concert days were celebrated in high style with the great and the good in the castle.
He was keenly aware of the value of good publicity and no slouch when in search of it. The money generated by the concerts was a windfall of sorts, but, crucially, it allowed him to underpin the finances of the castle and its grounds, developing other projects, such as the Slane whiskey brand, and helping to provide the resources to overcome setbacks such as the fire of 1991.
Although a very public personality, the young Henry Mount Charles – he was in his early 30s in 1981 – was good and genial company, interested in the world beyond his castle walls and indeed beyond his elite social milieu.
Embracing the rock’n’roll world afforded him the opportunity to experience the thrill of meeting great artists and celebrities while banking enough to retain and maintain his beloved Slane Castle for future generations. That concert idea was good fortune indeed.
Joe Breen wrote about rock music for The Irish Times from the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s
