Members of U2, as well as a host of other musicians and writers are contributing to a special new Irish Hospice Foundation book celebrating the unique relationship between sons and fathers.
Each will contribute to Sons+Fathers, writing on the their relationship with their father/son(s). The book will be published to coincide with Father’s Day, June 21st this year.
The book will help raise funds for the Irish Hospice Foundation’s Nurses for Night Care programme which provides free nursing care at home for the terminally ill.
The book's introduction will be by Colm Toibín. Other contributors will include former US President Bill Clinton, actors Gabriel Byrne, Daniel Day Lewis, and Colin Farrell; Bono and all members of U2; Paul McCartney, Bob Geldof, and writers John Banville, Colum McCann, and Salman Rushdie.
Contributors also include film makers John Boorman and Neil Jordan, former U2 manager Paul McGuinness, Julian Lennon, Gavin Friday, Roddy Doyle, Robert Fisk, Paul Auster, Mick Heaney, Joseph O'Connor, Alaister Campbell, and Bobby Shriver. The editor is Kathy Gilfillan of Lilliput Press.
Worldwide support is being provided by the Park Hyatt chain of hotels which has ordered 10,000 copies for placement in its 34 hotels internationally. Printing of the Irish edition is by the Ardagh group.
Irish Hospice Foundation chief executive Sharon Foley said: "Bono planted the seed for this book with his generous gift of the drawings he made of his father when he was dying. He asked if they could be used to raise money for The Irish Hospice Foundation, so we decided on a book, and the net was cast far and wide. We were blown away by the response and the generosity of the participants."
Some of the proceeds raised will also go towards Hospice Africa Uganda, founded by Nobel Peace Prize nominee Dr Anne Merriman who did her medical training in Dublin.
Sons+Fathers is being published by Penguin Random House and Hospice Press. It should be available from the end of May.
