Irish Masonophobia

The Irish Celtic band, The Corrs, had a brief moment of popularity after their appearance at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta. Since then it's been a slow slide into obscurity. After touring or rubbing noses with Celine Dion, Bono, Pavarotti, the Spice Girls, and having their 2000 album, In Blue, go platinum in the US, life's gotten quiet for the band.

Corrs' guiatrist Jim Corr has decided that music can't change the world fast enough, so a life of politics may be in his future. In a Bellfast Telegraph article today he sets out his political pet peeves. He's against microchipping people (what government is doing that, again?), genetically modified food, and the EU's Lisbon Treaty (scuttled last week by Irish voters).

Oh, and the Masons:

"There are a large number of secret societies in our government, we certainly know that. The push towards global government totally correlates with the Freemasonic agenda.

"The way it works is that once they see a rising star, let's say a politician, they're approached, as a couple of my friends have been approached, because they would see you as an asset to the brotherhood.

"Tony Blair is a 33rd degree Freemason. That's fairly common knowledge. The Queen is grand patroness of the World Freemasonry. Silvio Berlusconi is a high level Freemason. President George Bush is a member of the Skull and Bones, the Yale secret society, which is an off-shoot of the Freemasons."

He also believes 9/11 was an inside job.

The trouble with being the only guy in a band with your three hottie sisters is that nobody pays any attention to you. Corr is separated from his former fiancée Gayle Williamson, but he makes frequent trips to Belfast to visit their son Brandon. He said the birth of his child last year played a major a part in his political awakening.

"When you have children there is an extension of you into the future. You think, hang on, this may not affect me but what on earth is it going to be like for my children? You start to ask questions."

With every single statement about Freemasonry in his interview wrong, perhaps he needs to do a bit more boning up on the books before hitting the stump.