The sun is shining across Market Square in Charlestown, Co Mayo, as a small gathering in the shade of Murray’s Bar embraces the subject of the Gallagher brothers.
The pub is one of the three watering holes in the east Mayo town that has regularly hosted the Oasis boys over the years.
The discussion between Pat Flatley and Padraig Durcan is, like any good Irish debate, lubricated by early-afternoon pints of Guinness and the possibility of a tune or two. There is a resident guitar hooked up on the wall.
Not that the details of their pronouncements about Noel and Liam Gallagher’s maternal roots in the area, the recent sale of the family’s holiday home and the last time the brothers visited will go unquestioned.
Barmaid Olive Durcan is a bit of an Oasis expert and, indeed, the only one of the three who happens to have a picture to prove her credentials. It is of herself with the younger Gallagher, Liam.
It may be from a decade ago, but what is the passing of time when you are talking about the most famous people to put this remote area on the world map?
That is, other than the children who witnessed the apparition in Knock and Msgr James Horan who had a vision about “a foggy, boggy hill” and an airport.
“I clearly recall that Liam did the three pubs they liked to visit that weekend,” Durcan tells The Irish Times.
”Johnny Finn’s first of all, around the corner here; then ours, Murray’s, it’s a pub since 1868; and then over across the square to JJ Finan’s, that would be their home pub. It’s where their granny used to bring them after Mass on a Sunday because it’s a shop too.
“I remember clearly when word got round that the boys were back in town; even if it was only Liam, everybody followed him. He played the guitar in JJ’s and there was a big singsong.”
Pat Flatley is strumming the tune of Wonderwall on his guitar as he waits for his pint. He says there is definitely a recording of Liam’s session on YouTube, and he is correct.
The video shows Liam playing his solo single, Bold, at a rowdy session in July 2015 to shouts of “Go on, Gallagher.” Bold was subsequently on his hit solo album, As You Were.
Of course, this was six years after the big split of Oasis in 2009. Older brother Noel had formed his new band High Flying Birds by the following year.
There might have been rancour between the Gallagher brothers, but there was always hope, peppered with sentimentality, in this town of a reunion.
It’s where their mother Peggy was from and the place she fostered their Irish roots. It was, as Noel once confirmed drily, a place of haystacks, nettles and lots of childhood friends.
“Oh, we were so delighted to see them coming back together when it was announced last year,” Durcan says.
“People are expecting them to come to town either this week or next week. I have an inkling they’ll come next week after the concerts.”
Padraig Durcan, her brother-in-law, says: “They have an aunt living out the road, so maybe they’ll bring Peggy to see her.”
He was a neighbour of their grandmother, Margaret Sweeney, and remembers them all attending her funeral in September 2000.
“She is long gone and her cottage in Sonnagh was sold, but they used to come into town with her and hang around with the local lads. Sure, they knew everybody,” he says.
Across the street, Siobhán Brennan is busy in her boutique, Fashion Scene. Her eldest daughter, Sinéad, had flown in through Ireland West Airport Knock from London the previous night, Monday. It was a whistle-stop visit home.
“My three daughters are big Oasis fans, but they’ve already been to their concert in Wembley because they live in the UK now,” she says.
“Of course, they’d go again here if they could get tickets.”
Sinéad Bailey is already in the queue back to London at Knock airport when The Irish Times catches up with her.
“It was so lovely to head to Wembley with my two younger sisters, Stephanie and Shona, and Billy my husband,” she says. “Being from Charlestown, we’ve all loved Oasis from when we were younger. Well, basically we grew up with them, really.”
She cherishes a grainy picture of herself in a Charlestown pub, aged about 11, with Liam. Almost 30 years later, it was off to an Irish pub in London for a few drinks before the Wembley concert.
“Obviously everyone who was in there were Irish and I was talking to a couple of lads living in Portsmouth and Kent and some people even travelled over from home to the concert as well,” she says.
As they made their way to the stadium there were Oasis songs being played to the sound of all sorts of Irish accents in the queues, she says.
“As soon as the boys came out on stage the energy was absolutely electric. I’ve been to lots of concerts, but never to one like that. Everyone was on their feet and knew the words of every song,” she says.
“They might be two lads in their 50s now, but they sounded exactly the same. What you see is what you get – I think that is why people love them so much.”
Just before the call-out is announced to board her plane to London Luton, she says: “I used to listen to Oasis as a kid and the fact that they are doing this reunion means so much, especially when you are from Charlestown and feel that deep connection to them as emigrants.”
Knock airport is bracing itself for an influx of fans this weekend, its communications chief Donal Healy says.
“We are seeing a particular increase in numbers travelling from Manchester and Liverpool this Friday in anticipation of the big concert,” he says about the Oasis gigs on Saturday and Sunday in Dublin at Croke Park.
Airport staff members have often welcomed the Gallagher brothers over the past 20 years when they visited relatives in Charlestown.
“They have always been very good with their time for both staff at the airport and passengers when passing through. And who knows we are hopeful they might take a trip to Mayo after their concerts,” he says.
Where better for the brothers to solidify their reunion and enjoy an auld seisíun in the pub where their grandmother Margaret used to bring them after Mass on a Sunday.
