Van Morrison isn’t a fan of the COVID-19 lockdown. He’s written songs about it. He’s put out strongly-worded statements about it. It seems like he’s trying really hard to be the leader of the former celebrities going viral (pun intended) for doing something stupid during the pandemic.
Now, he wants to add “suing the Department of Health in Northern Ireland” to the list of dumb anti-lockdown things he’s done.
For those who don’t keep up with what’s happening on the other side of the Atlantic, Northern Ireland is currently in a six-week lockdown due to rising COVID-19 numbers, and they seem to take the whole quarantine thing more seriously than Americans do. Music venues there are shut down across the board, meaning that people can’t go see incredible acts worth risking their lives for, like Bow Wow or Vanilla Ice.
Naturally, that didn’t sit well with the aging songwriter, so he filed a “pre-action protocol letter” basically threatening to sue the Department of Health if they don’t respond within 21 days. According to his lawyers, Van Morrison is taking this legal action on behalf of thousands of others.
“Many people in the music and arts world in Northern Ireland have been devastated financially, socially, and artistically by this complete ban,” one of Van Morrison’s attorneys, Joe Rice told RTE. “This differs from the law in England and Wales and the evidence behind such a negative decision in this jurisdiction is far from obvious.”
Maybe the “Brown-Eyed Girl” was named Karen all along.
