U2 drummer Larry Mullen Jr dyscalculia: Counting bars is 'like climbing Everest'. What is dyscalculia?

The Irish musician, 63, revealed that he cannot count or add because of the learning difficulty, which affects his ability to use and acquire mathematical skills.

Mullen Jr, who only realised he had dyscalculia recently, has produced and written music for a new film Left Behind about dyslexia and the New York school system.

Discussing his own educational challenges, he told Times Radio: “I’ve always known that there’s something not particularly right with the way that I deal with numbers. I’m numerically challenged. And I realised recently that I have dyscalculia… so I can’t add, I can’t count. I had to find ways of doing this, and counting bars is like climbing Everest.

“And when people watch me play sometimes, they say ‘You look pained’. I am pained because I’m trying to count the bars.”

The drummer rose to prominence with the Irish rock band U2, which formed in 1976 with singer Bono, guitarist the Edge, bassist Adam Clayton and Mullen.

He revealed the group are currently writing new material and doing some initial recording and hopes they will tour at some point in 2026.

“I don’t think it will be what we normally do. I would hope it would be something different”, he said. “But I’m excited to get back in some capacity.”

U2 recently held a residency at the Sphere, a high-tech new immersive venue in Las Vegas which boasts 168,000 square feet of high-definition LEDs, 167,000 speakers and 17,000 seats. The acclaimed rockers have released a host of albums over the years, the most recent being Songs Of Surrender which featured reimagined recordings from their back catalogue.

What is dyscalculia?

According to the British Dyslexia Association: “Dyscalculia is a specific and persistent difficulty in understanding numbers which can lead to a diverse range of difficulties with mathematics. It will be unexpected in relation to age, level of education and experience and occurs across all ages and abilities.

“Mathematics difficulties are best thought of as a continuum, not a distinct category, and they have many causal factors. Dyscalculia falls at one end of the spectrum and will be distinguishable from other maths issues due to the severity of difficulties with number sense, including subitising, symbolic and non-symbolic magnitude comparison, and ordering. It can occur singly but often co-occurs with other specific learning difficulties, mathematics anxiety and medical conditions.”

Who else well-known has dyscalculia?

• Robbie Williams – singer
• Cher – singer
• Henry Winkler – actor, comedian, director and producer, best known as The Fonz
• Mick Hucknall – Simply Red singer
• Mary Tyler Moore – actress
• Bill Gates – founder of Microsoft
• Benjamin Franklin – Founding Father of the United States of America