Sandra Harris Writes

  WORLD AIDS DAY: LOOKING BACK ON THE START OF HIV AND AIDS IN IRELAND. BY SANDRA HARRIS. © Sunday the first of December was World AIDS Day, and our national broadcaster aired a programme a few days earlier to mark it: MEMORIAL: HIV AND AIDS IN IRELAND. A physical memorial to all the Irish people who died of AIDS stands now in the Phoenix Park, a gorgeous sculpture using the little red AIDS support ribbon people wear on their lapels as inspiration for its shape. I haven’t been out to visit it yet myself, but I hope there are seats provided so that people who want to reflect about times gone by and people who’ve passed can do so in peace, tranquility and comfort.   I was only a young one myself when AIDS first began to be talked about and noticed in America. That first little headline from 1981 in an American newspaper, RARE CANCER SEEN IN 41 HOMOSEXUALS, was something I had no clue of until much later. Young gay men began to present to doctors in their droves with the ...

  LIVE AID, QUEEN, FREDDIE MERCURY AND AIDS. BY SANDRA HARRIS. © Do you remember where you were when LIVE AID happened? I do. I was just a kid, obsessed with pop and rock, glued to the television on which the biggest benefit concert the world had ever seen was about to kick off with British broadcaster Richard Skinner uttering the immortal words, ‘It’s twelve noon in London (also Ireland, where I was!), seven am in Philadelphia and, around the world, it’s time for LIVE AID.’ It was a gorgeous sunny Saturday in Ireland and I was super-excited about having a day of top quality pop and rock from some of the biggest stars on the planet to look forward to. The legendary concert, organised by rock musicians Bob Geldof and Midge Ure, happened on this day thirty-seven years ago, and it was conceived of after the BBC aired some horrific news reports by Michael Buerk on the 1983-1985 famine in Ethiopia. The initial Band Aid project saw the song performed by Various Artists, Do They K...