IN THE LATEST episode of Living With Lucy, the Irish presenter spent a weekend with Aslan front-man Christy Dignam.
Lucy said that Christy had been on her wishlist for a long time, but unfortunately due to his ongoing treatment for cancer, things didn’t really work out. Although Christy’s still receiving chemotherapy, he finally felt up to inviting Lucy into his house to wreck his head for a few days.
Throughout the episode there was plenty of banter between the pair of them, as Lucy teased Christy about his ‘man-bag’ (men need to carry stuff too, Lucy) and he mocked her ‘Roy Orbison haircut’.
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Between all of the jokes, they had some serious discussions about Christy’s battle with cancer. The singer revealed that since his diagnosis five years ago, he has been suffering with insomnia and has not had two consecutive hours of sleep in a long, long time.
Christy talked Lucy through some of the medicine he had to take and demonstrated how his pace maker works, explaining that he needs it because he has suffered a heart attack before.
I just flat-lined before. I seen the bleedin’ tunnel and all that carry-on. I swear, I know it sounds real weird.
Lucy joked, “Christy, please don’t croak it this weekend.” In reply, he promised to wait until next weekend. Christy even spoke about how Bono and his wife Ali came up to the house with gifts for him when he was sick.
[Bono] came up and we were talking, he was in there and next minute Bono says “Stay there!” and he runs out and comes in with his iPad and he start playing us songs off the new album that wasn’t released yet, he was saying “This is a new song I’m just working on.” It was great. It was lovely.
Christy explained that him and Bono had been friends decades ago, but they “had a row years ago.”
When we got signed, any interview we’d do, it would always be “And do you live near U2? Do you rehearse in the same place? You two are from Finglas.” So I was doing an interview in the Gresham, I think it was, and your man’s going on and on. After a half hour of this I walked out of the interview.
The interviewer ran after Christy, apologising. Christy said he went into a little tirade:
He wasn’t born where I was born! He wasn’t reared where I was reared! Listen, when he talks about the seven towers of Ballymun, we still have to live in these places.
A few days later, Christy found out he was in the headlines slamming Bono for “claiming to be from Dublin slums.” U2 weren’t too happy about being badmouthed in the press and called Christy up to chat about it, but he insisted the conversation was taken out of context. Christy also spoke about his own struggles, watching newspaper churn out lies about his heroin addiction over the years.
Me ma and all was reading it, and I was thinking, “All the neighbours are reading it.”
Christy said he couldn’t even leave the house for a few years without being followed by photographers. Later in the episode, he did open up about his drug use and said, “There was times where I wasn’t the father I should have been.”
I try and make up for it now with the grandkids.
Lucy said that she couldn’t imagine Christy not being sober and clean. He told her:
When you’re using, it’s like schizophrenia. It’s like you’re a different person and you don’t notice it. I’d be thinking, nobody has a f**kin’ clue. I have them all fooled. Nobody understood it. At the time, the first few times I was taking heroin I didn’t even know I was taking heroin. I was taking it, didn’t know what it was. It was only later I found out it was heroin, so I was a f**king idiot going into it.
After reflecting on some of the hardest times of his life in the car with Lucy, Christy shrugged it all off, telling her “C’est la vie. Things are cool now.”
If you missed Christy’s episode of Living With Lucy and want to catch up, you can watch it here.
