"Give peace a chance" – who sang that? (Part 2)

“Terry Hooley had such an experience when meeting John Lennon, however Lennon was doing a lot more than giving opinions he understood little about.

Northern Irish Punk Legend Terri Hooley

Mr Hooley is the founder of Good Vibrations records and if you’re familiar with the Undertones and “Teenage kicks” you have this man to thank.  Active pacifist and peace campaigner Hooley was a great fan of John Lennon and was greatly disappointed when he found out that Lennon was hardly a man to emulate, below is an article that appeared in the Belfast Telegraph.”

The website for those wishing to check the authenticity of the quoted article is www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/ and type in the title of this post.

“Godfather of Ulster punk Terri Hooley has spoken about the time he got into a punch-up with John Lennon over the former Beatle’s support of the IRA. 

The Belfast music impresario, credited with discovering The Undertones, met Lennon in London during the late 1960s when the Troubles hadn’t long started. 

But Hooley, who was an active peace campaigner at the time, was disappointed to discover his hero wasn’t the pacifist he expected him to be.

Hooley was speaking after reports carried in several newspapers this week claimed that the Beatles legend offered financial support to the IRA by agreeing to perform a concert in Belfast.   (Emphasis added by me).

In a new Lennon biography, to be published this week, author Johnny Rogan alleges Lennon was keen to donate money to the Provisionals. (Emphasis added by me).

Hooley said he wasn’t surprised by the claims.

He said: “Me and a few friends had just set up a pirate radio station in the Craigantlet Hills and were in London to get equipment for it when I met Lennon,” he said.

“I can clearly remember that one of Lennon’s friends brought us to a garage and showed us guns and asked us if we wanted to bring them back home.  (Emphasis added by me).

“They obviously thought we were “the lads”. We were “the lads”, just not the ones they thought we were.

“Later that night I met Lennon himself and got in an argument with him, about not being a pacifist. There was some talk of money being sent to the IRA and I chinned him. He hit me back.”  (Emphasis added by me).

Hooley said the fight only ended when his glass eye landed on the floor.

But he said that despite the row with Lennon, he still remained one of his idols.

“It was never about the politics, it was about the music,” he said.

Hooley, who owns Phoenix Records in Belfast city centre and who ran Good Vibrations for many years, said he later met Lennon’s ex-wife Cynthia who was in Belfast to record a show.

“We were doing the Gerry Anderson show and one of the producers told her I’d met John,” he recalled.

“She asked me how that had gone and I told her we hadn’t got on. She wasn’t the least bit surprised to hear that and said he’d been very difficult to live with.

“I always say now it’s better not to meet your heroes.”

Duly comments: “The article really speaks for itself. John Lennon the man who preached and proclaimed “Give peace a chance” spent his time and money not only but funding but equipping a terrorist organization.”

“I don’t believe in killing whatever the reason! ”

“All we are saying is give peace a chance.”
John Lennon