Bob Geldof said he would "of course" accept the Freedom of the City of Dublin if it were to be reinstated, after it was withdrawn by councillors at a special meeting earlier this month.
The Boomtown Rats singer and Dublin native was speaking on Wednesday as he donated a vast archive from the Band Aid charity to the National Library of Ireland, a gesture described by Taoiseach Leo Varadkar as a "huge gift to the State".
Band Aid was established by Geldof as a fundraiser in response to the famine in Ethiopia in 1984 and he brought together 40 major bands and pop stars at the time to produce the Do they know it's Christmas? charity single. It ultimately led to the historic Live Aid concert the following year.
Last month, Geldof handed back the scroll recording his accolade to city council officials in protest against the fact that the honour was also held by Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
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He said he did not want to be on the same list as someone the UN had described as a “genocidalist”.
At the time, Geldof rejected criticism of his action by the Sinn Féin Lord Mayor of Dublin, Mícheál Mac Donncha, who said it was ironic given his British knighthood.
Geldof claimed the lord mayor’s party had “always been apologists for mayhem and murder”. The council subsequently voted not only to remove Suu Kyi from the honour roll, but also rescinded Geldof’s freedom of the city.
‘Bee in their bonnet’
Asked on Wednesday if he would like the honour restored, Geldof said: “That’s up to the council to do. But they’ve got a bee in their bonnet about me – everybody does.”
He said the “personal insults” from Sinn Féin were “water off a duck’s back”. “But lads, get a grip, you know. Grow up, you know.”
He admitted it had been a “wrench” to give the scroll back in his own home city, but he felt the inclusion of Suu Kyi on it “besmirched everyone”.
Asked if he would accept the honour if it were to be reinstated, he said: “Of course I would, yeah.”
Geldof and Minister for Culture Josepha Madigan were at the National Library of Ireland on Kildare Street to officially announce the donation of the archive by the Band Aid Trust.
The department will provide €245,000 to facilitate the development and digitisation of the archive - still in storage in a 100 sq ft unit in London - by expert staff at the library.
The archive includes correspondence with public figures and hundreds of letters from private individuals – mostly handwritten and on a range of personal writing paper.
Geldof said that despite approaches and negotiations with other national institutions the trustees had finally settled upon Ireland as the archive’s “natural home”.
This was because of the library’s understanding and commitment to the archive and “the extraordinary commitment of the Irish people to the entire Band Aid undertaking and their magnificent and unprecedented fundraising response to the records and concerts”. It was also a tribute to our “exceptional NGOs and government commitments to the ideas and ideals of Band Aid itself”.
“This then is our thanks and gratitude to Ireland and the Irish. We want you to use this gift for the benefit of those in whose name we too will continue to work. Our work will only be complete when there is no money left. But every time that record is played, every time our films are shown or sold, every time some kind person leaves us some money on their death, every time someone covenants part of their wage, then we continue.”