The Garth Brooks for Croke Park rumours are up and running again just days after Bruce Springsteen's hugely successful weekend gigs at the Dublin venue.
Despite all the high drama - and farce - over the cancellation of the Garth gigs two years ago, it seems that The Boss's recent gigs at Croker have ignited the possibility of another attempt at bringing the country superstar back to Ireland.
The recent Bruce Springsteen concerts attracted a crowd of around 160,000 punters to Croke Park without a hitch – and it's now claimed that Garth Brooks' US management were even impressed with the Taoiseach’s presence and air guitar antics at last Friday's gig.
I can not believe this just happened #springsteen pic.twitter.com/GC6NCXDxsM
— Dan Walsh (@travors) May 27, 2016
A concert source told the Irish Sun: "The message we got from Garth’s people is we need to talk urgently and get these Irish concerts sorted soon."
The source added: "So much that went wrong before with Garth’s concerts was down to officialdom in Ireland so to have the Taoiseach making such a public show of how he was enjoying a concert at Croke Park is significant."
The Springsteen shows brought an estimated €16million boost to the Dublin economy. But the three Croker shows that Garth Brooks ultimately axed in 2014 could have been worth up to €60million.
So does all this speculation mean we could be looking at Garth gigs in Croker next year? While local residents don't want to be in the bad Brooks with fans of the country star, they're sticking with the annual limit of three concert events at GAA HQ.
Croke Park Residents' representative, Pat Gates told TEN: "It's very clear: there's a limit of three concerts a year. Any more than that and we'd oppose them.
"It's there to protect residential amenities. An Bord Pleanála- who judge such matters independently - put a cap of three concerts a year when the stadium was being rebuilt. It's protecting our quality of life.
"We love the stadium, we love the buzz that comes with big games and concerts, but we want it to be proportionate in terms of the impact it has on residents."
This was on the back of Dublin City Council refusing to licence two of five gigs that had been scheduled and sold out as they were above the annual limit set independently by An Bord Pleanala.
Punters queuing for those all important tickets in 2014
Local representative, Social Democrats' Councillor Gary Gannon, doesn't see the possibility of five Garth Brook gigs being on the cards as nothing has changed in the interim.
"Obviously they're talking about next year because the limit is three concerts a year," he told TEN. "If Garth Brooks was to come to play three gigs next year it would be great.
"This year's concerts have gone very well so far. The two Bruce Springsteen gigs were very well run and everyone enjoyed them. But there's a very good reason why there's a limit of three per year.
"It's very important that the quality of life is maintained for the locals and that's why this limit is in place."
