Garth Brooks’ Dublin gigs make Nashville news

Ireland doesn’t often make the headlines in Nashville, but Dublin City Council’s decision to refuse a licence for two of his gigs made many country music websites.

"Garth Brooks cancels two shows in Ireland" is the headline in the Tennessean reporting that he has "hit a snag in his highly anticipated comeback" due to an issue with permits.

In North Carolina country radio station WWGP reported that two of his five Dublin concerts had been cancelled due to “permit issues”. Taste of country writes that his “comeback shows” in Ireland were refused permission. Ace Showbiz reports that his shows “may be ruined” after two dates were cancelled. Among the other US country music websites to report the story were Rolling Stones country, and CMT.

The Guardian’s US edition focused on the scale of the concerts in a tweet: “The equivalent of 10% of Ireland’s population bought tickets to Garth Brooks’ Dublin concerts. Which got cancelled”.

Among the comments under the story on the Guardian’s website is: “Why didn’t they get approval from the council before they sold the tickets? What a backwards way of doing things.”This is followed by the reply: “Welcome to Ireland!”

The Garth Brooks story also gave rise to many puns in headlines , including this one from the US-based Global Post website referring to his 1991 hit. “Thunder rolls in Dublin as Garth Brooks comeback gigs cancelled”.

Comedians were also busy on twitter trying to lighten the mood. Des Bishop wrote : Tim Howard can save the Garth Brooks shows.(referring to the US goal keeper)

Comedian PJ Gallagher wrote: “In fairness to #GarthBrooks I once had to take a day off work one Friday but it wasn’t fair to everyone so I took the whole week off instead”

Oliver Callan tweeted: “It’s now emerged Seamus Darby scored the goal that stopped Garth Brooks winning his five in a row in #CrokePark” (Seamus Darby was an Offaly player best remembered for depriving Kerry of five All Ireland’s in a row in 1982).