U2 to play three Dublin shows at Christmas

U2 are to play three shows at the 3Arena at Christmas.

The announcement was made by Bono in an interview he conducted with Tony Fenton before the Today FM DJ died in March. The interview will be broadcast on Monday.

To date U2 have booked 68 concerts, starting in Vancouver next month and ending in France in November. No dates for the Dublin concerts have been announced .

The Irish legs of the concerts are expected to include contributions from teenagers who benefited from U2's Music Generation scheme in which the band gave €5 million to local authorities to allow young people to buy instruments and receive musical tuition.

In January of this year, Tony Fenton was invited to join Bono and wife Ali at home in Killiney to record an interview.

Fenton had wanted to interview Bono for many years and, after bumping into each other on a night out, he asked Bono to come onto the Tony Fenton Show around the release of the band's new album.

Bono promised he would but Fenton was in hospital when ‘Songs of Innocence’ was released. The DJ later interviewed Bono in March.

U2 performed together at Fenton’s funeral. Bono and The Edge played Ordinary Love, the Oscar-nominated song from the film Mandela.

Adam Clayton joined in followed by drummer Larry Mullen, playing the tambourine.

This was the first time U2 have played in public since Bono’s accident in January when he fell off a bicycle in Central Park.

The interview will be broadcast in a special one-hour show on Today FM this coming bank holiday Monday, 4th May, at 3pm.