Croke Park residents feel ‘in the dark’ about concert plans

Residents of the Croke Park area say they are being kept in the dark about plans to host concerts at the Dublin stadium during the summer.

Local representatives are planning to hold a meeting with the residents and Croke Park officials about potential performaces this summer amid a series of rumours about concerts by artists such as Bruce Springsteen.

Pat Gates, chairman of the Residents’ Association said the group has been “kept in the dark” by Croke Park about the matter.

Singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran is the latest name to be linked with making an appearance on the GAA stadium’s summer line-up.

The Script were unveiled as the 2015 Croke Park headline act last October, with the Dublin band set to play the stadium on June 20th.

Croke Park has not commented on the remaining two dates of the 2015 summer line-up, while Aiken Promotions has denied the possibility of an upcoming Springsteen gig.

Last summer Garth Brooks’s five sell-out concerts in Croke Park were called off after Dublin City Council refused to licence two of the shows due to objections from local residents.

“Croke Park has continuously said they will work with the residents to keep them informed around the concerts issue,” Mr Gates said. “It’s been in the news all week and we haven’t been consulted.”

He said residents did not have “a problem with three concerts” and just wanted clarification about the state of play “so we can plan our lives”.

“The uncertainty means that local families are unable to plan when they might book holidays to avoid the noise and disruption that concerts cause the local community,” he said.

Croke Park Stadium director Peter McKenna this week said the Garth Brooks “fiasco” had damaged “brand Dublin” more than “brand Croke Park” but that more legislation was needed to ensure a similar concert debacle didnot happen again.

Mr Gates said residents were “not looking to interfere in any way with how Croke Park does its business unless they overstep the mark in terms of numbers of concerts which really does erode our quality of life”.