Mark Doyle / Splash NewsTalk about spreading holiday cheer!
Several of Ireland's biggest musical stars including U2's Bono, Sinead O'Connor, Glen Hansard and Damien Rice took to the streets of Dublin on Christmas Eve to busk for charity with some of their biggest hits.
Wearing his signature wraparound shades, the 52-year-old "Beautiful Day" star teamed up with Hansard—the lead singer of The Frames who also won a Best Original Song Oscar for his movie Once—for a rousing unplugged rendition of U2's "Desire."
O'Connor, meanwhile, braved the cold weather to belt out a stirring take on her classic "Nothing Compares 2 U," while Rice crooned a stripped-down version of his 2001 song "The Blower's Daughter" to the delight of bystanders who surrounded the musicians with cell-phone cameras in hand. Everyone eventually joined in to sing a few Christmas standards as well, including "Silent Night."
The acoustic jam session on Dublin's Grafton Street was part of Bono's Christmas Eve tradition now in its fourth year of busking for a good cause, in this case raising money for The Simon Community and the Peter McVerry Trust, which aid the homeless.