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Liam is seeking a Galway oasis

February 16, 2011

By Staff Reporter

By Eileen Murphy

Touring can be a dangerous business. Just ask the poor, bruised boys from the band Oasis.

It seems that everyone’s favorite lager louts got into a bit of a smash-up last week, when the taxi in which they were riding smashed head-on into another car. No one was too seriously injured, although three of the group were taken to a nearby hospital for treatment. Bass player Andy Bell and keyboardist Jay Darlington emerged sporting yards of decorative medical tape, while lead guitar Noel Gallagher reportedly suffered “heavy facial bruising, whiplash and shock,” according to the website showbizireland.com.

The accident forced the band to cancel gigs in Philadelphia and Boston, though we hear they’re planning to reschedule. Which should be a great relief to the citizens of those fine cities, many of whom have not yet been spat upon by lead singer/expectorist Liam Gallagher.

Speaking of Liam, we hear that he’s searching for an Irish oasis of his very own. The singer, whose Irish-born parents packed their offspring off to the West of Ireland every summer when they were kids, has hired a Galway real estate agent to find him a home.

Liam can’t wait to find a wee cottage — or, rather, a wee mansion — to call his own. A source close to the mercurial singer says “he’s been thinking of moving for years. He loves Ireland.”

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The insider reports that the 30-year-old Gallagher thinks Ireland is an ideal place to raise children.

“Liam doesn’t want any child of his brought up in London when the whole family would benefit from Ireland,” said the source. And, as an added bonus, Liam would get a bit of a break from all that adoration that’s thrust upon him in Britain.

“He sometimes can’t get out of the house because of the fans,” said the source. “He gets a lot less hassle in Ireland. People tend to leave him alone.” Could it be that his reputation as a brawling boor precedes him? Nahhhh.

Anniversaries, both happy and sad

Four children, 10 albums and millions of dollars later, U2 lead singer Bono and his wife Ali will celebrate 20 years of wedded bliss on Aug. 21.

The pair recently spent a romantic holiday in Italy, because, obviously, they needed a break from puttering around the villa in the South of France. Their happiness will be tempered by sadness, though, since Bono’s father, Bobby Hewson, died on the same date last year. The family will join Bono’s brother Norman in Dublin to mark the elder Hewson’s passing.

Elsewhere in Bonoland, we hear that the new greatest hits album, due out this fall, will be marketed in the same way as their last anthology collection. “Best of 1990-2000” will be shipped with a second CD of B-sides for the first week of its release. Subsequent pressings will include only the main disk. The compilation will contain tracks from “Achtung Baby,” “Zooropa,” “Pop” and “Passengers,” including odds and ends like “Miss Sarajevo” (a duet with Luciano Pavarotti) and “Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me” from “Batman.” The album will also include two new songs. One of them, “Electric Storm,” will be released as a single on October 21.

New “Bond” may leave audiences stirred

If you were planning on taking the kiddies to see the latest installment in the James Bond series this winter, you might want to make alternate plans. In fact, we’d suggest booking the babysitter now.

We hear that the series, which stars Irish dreamboat Pierce Brosnan, is about to shed its PG image and show Bond in a rather racy undercover romp with villainness Halle Berry.

Lee Tamahori, director of the upcoming film, “Die Another Day,” told Vanity Fair that he decided to include “a very hot love scene” in the film.

Tamahori says he was a bit bored with the usual Bond movie approach to S-E-X: “You know, clothes strewn around the room, the camera slowly [panning] over to the bed.”

It is yet to be known whether producers (or censors) will approve of the spicier footage. What will be more interesting is how Queen Elizabeth will react to the film if the more, er, athletic footage is left in. Her Majesty is scheduled to attend the film’s world premiere in November. We wonder if she can still order people to be thrown into the Tower.

In more Brosnan news, we hear that Pierce and his son, Sean, are doing a little father-son bonding over their choice of career. The younger Brosnan has decided to following in his father’s footsteps and become an actor.

But while Sean shares the same kind of movie star good looks that inspired People magazine to dub his dad “The Sexiest Man Alive 2002,” he has no desire to make the leap to the silver screen, or to step into James Bond’s wingtip shoes. Instead, he aspires to a career onstage, where he can embrace the roar of the greasepaint and the smell of the crowd. Hmmm . . . maybe someday we’ll see him in “007: The Musical.”

Quotable

“If you saw my X-rays inside I look like Herman Munster. I can barely get through an airport. They want to interrogate me because I set off every single alarm.”

— Irish actor Liam Neeson on the steel pins inserted into his hips and foot after his motorcycle accident two years ago.

Broderick ready to meet victims’ family

Irish-American actor Matthew Broderick is still haunted by the 1987 car accident in County Fermanagh that left two Irish women dead and him seriously injured.

The actor, who shot to fame in movies like “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” and recently starred on Broadway in “The Producers,” says that he would be willing to meet with the family of the victims, Anna Gallagher and her mother, Margaret Doherty. Both were killed instantly when Broderick’s car crossed over into oncoming traffic and smashed into their vehicle. The actor, who suffered fractures to his thigh and ribs, was charged with dangerous driving and faced five years in a Belfast jail. The charges were later reduced to careless driving, and he was fined _159 before being set free. The light sentence, coupled with Broderick’s celebrity status, caused a great deal of anger in the close-knit Irish community.

Now, family member Martin Doherty is willing to extend the olive branch to the actor.

“He didn’t kill my mother and sister deliberately,” Doherty told the News of the World. “I would like to meet him and talk to him about the accident.”

Broderick has had little contact with the family since the incident.

“We have never been able to speak to him about what happened,” Doherty said. “There was a note after the accident from him saying how sorry he was, but no other contact.”

Broderick has sought professional help to deal with his sorrow over the accident and his guilt in causing the deaths of Gallagher and Doherty.

“It was extremely difficult coming to grips with what happened,” he told Best magazine. “But in time, I felt better about that terrible experience. Therapy helped.”

The actor added that, for the most part, he was treated quite sympathetically in the media.

“Because I’m famous, the story is always told from my point of view,” he said. “[It] makes me feel all the more sorry for the family of the women killed.”

A spokesperson for Broderick told the newspaper that, while the actor wouldn’t be in Ireland until next year, the issue “could be addressed then.”

For the time being, Broderick is staying close to home and to his wife, “Sex and the City” star Sarah Jessica Parker, as they await the birth of their first child. The couple spends a great deal of their time off at their cottage in Kilcar, Co. Donegal, which is where the baby was reportedly conceived. We can only hope that they won’t follow in the footsteps of Posh and Becks, and name the baby after his or her, er, beginnings. After all, who’d want to stuck with a name like Kilcar Broderick?

The book(s) on Louis

Louis Walsh may have written the book on Irish pop, but now someone wants to write the book on him. And the Mayo-bred impresario, for whom life has been — with apologies to Ronan Keating — a bit of a rollercoaster, is on the record (note the pun) as saying he doesn’t want to (here it comes) face the music.

Actually, there are two books in the works that have Louis a bit hot under the collar. The first, titled “Baby, You’re a Star,” is an unauthorized biography of Walsh by Irish journalist Kathy Foley. The book, which insiders say will “reveal the true personality of the man with the Midas touch,” will reportedly include juicy details of his rise from obscure showband booker to Eurovision talent manager millionaire pop svengali,

Walsh granted one interview to Foley when she started work on the book but quickly changed his mind about the project and refused to cooperate any further. He asked (or perhaps, ordered) friends, family and associates to have nothing to do with the book. But Ireland on Sunday reports that the book will be chock-a-block with previously unpublished stories and a glimpse into Walsh’s intensely private life.

The other book in the pipeline that definitely won’t be on Walsh’s recommended reading list is an as yet untitled tome by bitter ex-Boyzoner Shane Lynch.

The singer, best known for his goofy hairdos, decorative facial hair and shaved eyebrow, enlisted his very own ghostwriter to record his every thought. We hear that Lynch’s book will be a no-holds-barred expose of the cultural phenomenon that was Boyzone. Walsh is no doubt the target of much of Shane’s ire, but we can’t imagine he’s losing much sleep over it. The book is reportedly being vetted by lawyers even as we type this, and sources say it may never even get printed. Which, as we can all agree, would be a literary loss of unspeakable proportions.

Briefings

Well, Things may be looking a bit grim, career-wise, for most of the former members of Boyzone, but Keith Duffy has quietly been making strides in other fields.

The handsome singer wisely carved a niche in TV during the band’s final year, working as a morning show presenter on British television and endearing himself to the public as a participant in the TV show “Celebrity Big Brother.” Now Keith has made the leap to a recurring part on “Coronation Street,” one of Britain’s most popular soaps. With his chiseled good looks and easy charm, can Hollywood be far behind?

One cool thing about Keith is that he refused the soap bosses’ request that he drop his Irish accent for the soap. It’s a matter of principle. Of ethnic pride. Besides, he’d be in for unmerciful teasing if he started dropping his “haitches” or whatever it is they do on Corrie.

“Listen, I’m Irish,” he told the soap honchos in his delightful Dublin twang. “I’ve got an Irish accent.”

But really, he wants to be able to enjoy his pints in peace back home.

“All my mates will be watching back in Dublin,” he said. “And if I don’t use my own accent, I’ll get a slagging.” ‘Nuff said, roight? Or he’ll borst ya.

Quotable

There’s very few good movies being made in Ireland these days, and if my name being lent to them can get them made, well then, that’s great!”

— Colin Farrell on why he accepted a small part in Neil Jordan’s upcoming movie, “Intermission.”

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