Self Aid
18 videos • 3,402 views • by Dave Murphy The purpose of the concert was to highlight the chronic unemployment problem in Ireland at the time, with nearly 250,000 people unemployed. The 14 hour concert was the largest that had ever been staged in Ireland. All musicians that took part donated their time free of charge. All profits from the concert and subsequent album, Live for Ireland, went to the Self Aid Trust. The telethon raised millions of pounds for a job creation trust fund as well as over 1000 job pledges. But there was a lot of opposition to the concert, as Conor mcCabe puts it "Ive tried explaining Self-Aid to friends of mine in their twenties and its impossible. what? People pledged jobs? WTF? There was absolutely no logic to it whatsoever, except the extremely arrogant idea that the unemployed should be happy with charity, and thats about it. I mean, I remember queuing for the tins of EEC intervention beef at Christmas, a state scheme administered by the fucking Vincent de Paul. Absolutely degrading. And as for butter vouchers I went from signing on and getting butter vouchers (two per month plus two for every dependent) to being hired by the civil service where my job was to give out butter vouchers. Talk about an economy eating itself. My god. It just makes me angry. And Paul Cleary of the Blades was the only artist to make a protest against Self-Aid" Look up http://www.dublinopinion.com/2009/04/...