Bob Geldof said yesterday morning that the 1916 Rising was a mistake and that Ireland was better off under the British Empire.

Speaking to Miriam O’Callaghan on RTÉ Radio 1, the singer and activist said the rebels destroyed hundreds of lives and James Connolly had a messiah complex.

The Boomtown Rats frontman said: ‘I think they were delusional. Ireland thought that it was a joke at the actual time.

‘It was only when [the British] made the ridiculous, stupid military mistake, as opposed to political mistake, of shooting these men, that the sentiment changed.’ The Live Aid founder called the 1916 leaders ‘a bunch of geezers’ and said the revolution was responsible for a loss of freedoms for Irish people.

He added that James Connolly was messianic in his support for communism as Pádraig Pearse was in his support for Catholicism.

‘We have a coup d’etat, and after that where are all the freedoms that were enjoyed prior to the Rising are wiped out,’ Geldof said.

‘So divorce is [blocked], censorship is brought in, which then sends our writers off around the world. And so we’re left in this nullity of a culture when we had a hugely vibrant one.

‘[WB] Yeats goes into the Senate. He rails against the divorce rules, he rails against censorship, brilliant speeches, they’re all in the National Library,’ said Geldof, who made the two-part documentary about Yeats, A Fanatic Heart, for RTÉ in 2016.

‘They kind of go “yeah whatever”, then he wins the Nobel Prize so they can’t just say “shut up”. He added: ‘He said you won’t understand what I’m writing until 50 years after I’m dead. In 1939 he dies. 1989 we elect Mary Robinson, a woman, a human rights lawyer, 50 years exactly to the point that Yeats said that.

‘Suddenly we’re fit to go into the 21st century.

‘We’ve grown up, we’ve gotten rid of this nonsense that’s hampered us and held us back,’ Geldof continued.

He compared the 1916 rebels to those that support Brexit in the UK. ‘Living in Brexit Britain is very difficult,’ said Geldof. ‘You try and challenge that, and I think it’s terminal for the country to do that, I think it’s ridiculous.’ He added: ‘You won’t get listened to because it’s an emotional thing, rather like 1916, it’s driven purely by passion.

‘And reason doesn’t enter into it. So while, yes, I am over-exuberant about things that bother me, I try and temper it with reason.’