Ali Hewson

Irish activist and businesswoman

Alison Hewson (née Stewart; born 23 March 1961) is an Irish activist and businesswoman. She is married to singer and musician Paul Hewson, known as Bono, from the rock group U2. Raised in Raheny, she met her future husband at age 12 at Mount Temple Comprehensive School, and married him in 1982. She was awarded a degree in politics and sociology from University College Dublin (UCD) in 1989. The couple have four children together and live at residences in Ireland, France, and the United States. She has inspired several U2 songs, most famously "Sweetest Thing". Hewson became involved in anti nuclear activism in the 1990s. She narrated Black Wind, White Land, a 1993 Irish documentary about the lasting effects of the Chernobyl disaster, and has worked closely with activist Adi Roche. She has been a patron of Chernobyl Children's Project International since 1994 and has participated in a number of aid missions to the high radiation exclusion zones of Belarus. She has also campaigned against Sellafield, the northern English nuclear facility. In 2002 she helped lead an effort which sent more than a million postcards, urging the site be closed, to Prime Minister Tony Blair and others. Hewson has repeatedly been discussed by tabloid newspapers as a possible candidate for political offices, including President of Ireland; none of these suggestions have come to fruition. Hewson is the co founder of two ethical businesses, the EDUN fashion line in 2005, and Nude Skincare products in 2007. The former, intended to promote fair trade with Africa, has struggled to become a viable business. French conglomerate LVMH has made substantial investments into both companies.

Alison Stewart was born on 23 March 1961, the daughter of Terry and Joy Stewart. She has an older brother, Ian, and nephew, Ross Stewart, who both live in Australia. Stewart studied at Mount Temple Comprehensive School. At the age of twelve, she met Paul Hewson, who was in the year above at the school. In September 1976, Hewson met the other members of what would become U2; the band members adopted nicknames, and Hewson soon became known as Bono. At around the same time, he and Ali, as she was known, began dating, and soon became a steady couple. It took Stewart a while to enjoy the band's music, as her own tastes ran toward her father's Frank Sinatra and Nat King Cole records. The relationship became more serious as she accompanied him in his efforts to break through in the music industry, and by 1979 they were discussing marriage, conditional upon his career becoming established. In the meantime she worked in a motor insurance company and in her father's electrical business. Hewson married Bono on 31 August 1982 in a Church of Ireland ceremony at All Saints Church, Raheny. In debt to U2's record label, Island Records, the couple could not afford a honeymoon, but Island founder Chris Blackwell gave them use of the Goldeneye estate he owned in Jamaica. Having returned to Ireland, the couple moved to a small mews house in Howth, which they shared with the rest of U2. As the band broke through in popularity with the War Tour in 1983, Ali Hewson did not readily adapt to the new circumstances. After seeing her with the group at a trendy Hollywood nightspot, journalist Ethlie Ann Vare commented that Ali looked "as out of place as a dairymaid in a brothel." Although she had wanted to become a nurse, Hewson gave up on the notion, as the intense schooling required would have been incompatible with the direction that her husband's life had taken. Instead she focused on studying in the social sciences, to give her an ability to understand social policy and make a difference to people, similar to what nursing would have enabled. Tensions continued in 1987 during the subsequent Joshua Tree Tour. Hewson received a degree in social science, politics and sociology from University College Dublin in 1989 at age 28, giving birth to the couple's first daughter, Jordan, two weeks before her final exams. Further plans to earn a master's degree in moral and political ethics were put on hold after the birth of their second daughter, She saw children with no possessions and at risk of death; despite this, to her they appeared more spiritually alive than those in Ireland who had material comforts but seemed spoiled and spiritually unaware, like her own children. In 1992, Hewson participated in Greenpeace protests against the Sellafield plant for nuclear reprocessing, located across the Irish Sea in Cumbria, England. but she said she had not been responsible for that particular protest. After a request by activist Adi Roche, (shortened to Chernobyl Children International in 2010), an organisation founded and run by Roche that works with children, families, and communities that continue to be affected by Chernobyl. in one case she had to retreat quickly when a fire spread in a village a few miles from Chernobyl. Hewson has made sure her own children met those from Chernobyl with birth deformities and other illnesses, so that they would have a broader appreciation of the world and what to be thankful for. In 2009, she staged a public abseil of the 17 storey Elysian Tower in Cork to raise funds for the organisation. She returned to the Sellafield issue in 2002, noting that while Ireland had no nuclear power plants itself, Belarus had been the most affected region even though Chernobyl was not in it, and that was "exactly what could happen in Ireland if there was an explosion at Sellafield." In April 2002, Hewson was one of the leaders of an effort which delivered over a million postcards demanding that the facility be shut down; recipients included British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Prince Charles, and Norman Askew, head of British Nuclear Fuels Limited. The campaign was backed by celebrities, including Ronan Keating and Samantha Mumba, (Labour had succeeded with its candidate Mary Robinson in the 1990 election but came in fourth with Roche in the 1997 election.) Hewson stated that she had not been approached, and that "It's not a serious proposition. It would obviously be a huge honour if I was asked to take on such a huge task, but for one thing I'm not sure I'm qualified, and for another I've got four small kids to bring up first." She also expressed contentment with incumbent President Mary McAleese staying for another term. She jokingly added that she could not see Bono agreeing to live in a smaller house. The notion of her running for Irish president came up again in 2008 in conjunction with the 2011 election. In 2003, plans were announced to build the so called Exploration Station as part of the proposed Heuston Gate development near the Dublin Heuston railway station. Hewson said, "Seeing as we're nearly the last European country in on it, we can learn from children's museums already up and running and expand on them". The effects of the financial crisis of 2007–2008 then put a halt to the entire Heuston Gate project. As of August 2016, the site was finally fixed as between Earlsfort Terrace and the Iveagh Gardens, and as of October 2019, the post of CEO was advertised. In 2015 Hewson signed an open letter which the ONE Campaign had been collecting signatures for; the letter was addressed to Angela Merkel and Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma, urging them to focus on women as they serve as the head of the G7 in Germany and the AU in South Africa respectively, which will start to set the priorities in development funding before a main UN summit in September 2015 that will establish new development goals for the generation.

In 2005, Hewson, Bono and designer Rogan Gregory co founded the EDUN fashion label. Hewson has served as at least partial inspiration for many Bono authored U2 songs, going back to the track "Another Time, Another Place" from their 1980 debut album Boy. She helped Bono get through a bad period of writer's block during the lead up to the 1983 War album, particularly in the composition of the lyrics to "Sunday Bloody Sunday". She inspired the personal themes in "New Year's Day", from the same record. That album and the accompanying War Tour brought financial success to the band, and Bono and Hewson moved into a three level, three room Martello tower in Bray. The group's 1984 song "Promenade" reflects both that location and the spiritual aspects of his desire for her. The U2 song "Sweetest Thing" was written for Hewson as a gift because Bono forgot her birthday whilst recording with the band during The Joshua Tree sessions. Originally released as a B side in 1987, it was later re recorded and released as a single from the compilation album The Best of 1980–1990 in 1998. Hewson agreed to appear in the single's music video as long as all proceeds from it went to Chernobyl Children's Project. U2 lyrics usually have several possible levels of interpretation, and it is not always possible to definitively ascribe Hewson's influence upon them, but music writer Niall Stokes believes that inspiration from Hewson is pronounced throughout the group's 1997 album Pop, particularly on "Staring at the Sun", which he believes reflects her Chernobyl Children's Project involvement and the feelings of both danger and hopefulness that it triggered in Bono. Stokes also believes that the 2000 song "When I Look at the World" is an explicit acknowledgement of Hewson's strength and commitment as exemplified by that Chernobyl work, while others think it is about Jesus or God. Bono has seemed to deflect those interpretations, saying that song is in part a hard edged look at himself from the eyes of one losing faith. In any case, Bono has said that he does not feel constrained in his writing or interviews by what Hewson might think, as "[she] doesn't read newspapers. Or listen to the radio. There's a mysterious distance between us." Hewson and her family live in Killiney, in south County Dublin, in a mansion and grounds that overlook the Irish Sea and that have been expanded by purchasing the adjoining property. Bill Clinton and Salman Rushdie are among those who have stayed at the guest house there. Hewson in particular has been friendly with several supermodels, By 2011, the couple's fortune was placed at €572 million. The family became fixtures at Sunday services in Killiney as well, She has stated, "I've no desire to be a star," seeing the effect intense public attention has had on both her husband and on activist Adi Roche. The Cranberries' 2001 song "Time Is Ticking Out" was inspired by Hewson's work with Chernobyl Children's Project. In 2002, Hewson received an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from the National University of Ireland for her work on environmental issues, particularly the Chernobyl Children's Project. Bono and Ali Hewson were given the Council of Fashion Designers of America board of directors' Special Tribute Award in 2007 for their humanitarian work via the Edun clothing line. Hewson was also voted Sexiest Celebrity Other Half in a 2008 poll by entertainment. ie.