Son of Irish music legend launches appeal to be reunited with stolen banjo gifted to his father by U2

Recently, in his Wexford home, Stephen Dunne has been going through some old photos of his famous father - the late, great Pecker Dunne. Having followed in his Dad's footsteps, taking on the moniker 'Pecker' himself and travelling the country performing at festivals and fairs all over Ireland, he took a particular notice of an instrument his father was playing in a few of the grainy old photos, one he is now hoping to track down and be reunited with. In one image, Pecker plays a very particular banjo, while also holding a very young Stephen close. It was a banjo with a bit of a back story, carrying an engraving on the inside - 'specially made for Pecker Dunne'. 'I'll tell you where it came from,' Stephen says. 'Back in them days, my Dad did a recording with U2 and their people. He knew all of them. They got that banjo made for him specially and got it engraved and everything and gave it to him as a present.' Legendary musician Pecker Dunne. Those recordings have become the subject of Irish music folklore, the tapes reportedly being lost before they could be released, although Stephen seems to recall his father having some kind of copy. 'The project kind of petered out in the end,' he says. 'He (Pecker) gave up a whole month of summer at that time to do this LP and it never came out. He did have a copy of it though. I'm nearly sure it was one of the tapes he'd be selling off.' Sadly, at some point in the late 80s, the banjo was one of a number of items that was stolen from Pecker's caravan when the family was camping at Ardfert, Co Kerry. Read more Double celebrations as two sets of twins achieve identical results in their Leaving Cert — 'That was quite a shock' 'It would have been late 80s, maybe around '87 or something like that,' Stephen says. 'They took a good few bits on him. Cleaned him out. I think there was a guitar belonging to him taken as well and my mother was pregnant with my brother at the time.' While looking over the old photos, Stephen found himself beginning to wonder if maybe the old banjo was lying in a corner of someone's house, or hanging on the wall of a pub somewhere. 'I just thought, with the power of the internet these days, you just never know. Maybe I'd be able to get it back,' he says. 'It has that engraving, but it's possible that somebody has thrown a white skin over that, and it's not visible any more. It's a fairly unusual banjo though. I've never seen one like it anyway.' Stephen has shared the photo of the instrument with a few expert friends and is hoping to get more information to aid him in his quest to be reunited with his father's long-lost banjo. While he concedes it's a long-shot that anything will come of it, he figures it's worth a try. Anyone who might have any leads on the instrument or any information that could help Stephen in his search can contact Stephen 'The Pecker' Dunne on Facebook, or any of his social media accounts.