Country music superstar Garth Brooks will perform a multi-city tour of Ireland in 2027
Fans of Garth Brooks will be brushing off their Stetsons and polishing their cowboy boots after the country music superstar announced he will be performing in multiple cities across Ireland in 2027.
The tour includes Belfast, Galway, Kilkenny, Limerick and Cork and will be the first time he has played in Northern Ireland since his King's Hall gig in November 1998.
The singer has said in the past that Ireland is his favourite place in the world to sing, and the love appears to be mutual as his first two Belfast concerts sold out, with an extra date already added.
So why has an American country music star remained so popular with Irish fans for so many years?
Cathy O'Reilly previously saw Garth Brooks live at two of his Dublin concerts in 2022
Cathy O'Reilly, who is originally from County Monaghan but lives in Belfast, managed to get her tickets for the very first show of Garth Brooks' tour on 21 May 2027 at Boucher Road Playing Fields.
She has already seen Brooks perform live before - twice during his run of concerts in Dublin in 2022 and her love of his music was passed on from her parents and uncles.
"It's growing up listening to him it brings me back to my childhood. My uncle gave me his cd, he didn't even buy me one - just gave me his because I loved him so much."
She believes the Irish link to the US and the fact that fans on the island give the best welcome to performers, are the reasons for Garth Brooks' popularity in Ireland.
"He [Garth Brooks] gives us energy and we're giving it back ten-fold nearly, and we're just so welcoming so he really enjoys coming here."
Garth Brooks last performed in Ireland in 2022
Peter Aiken, from Aiken Promotions, told Irish broadcaster RTÉ that the new Belfast gig is "red hot".
"There could be a fourth show in Belfast," he said.
Brooks is the biggest selling artist in US history and is the only artist to pass 200 million albums sold.
In 2014 about 400,000 fans booked tickets to five concerts he had planned for Dublin's Croke Park but Dublin City Council only granted permission for three of them.
Brooks said he would only perform all five concerts or none at all and so the shows were cancelled.
He returned to Dublin in September 2022.
Stephen Butler performs as a Garth Brooks tribute act with the band Thunder Rolls and described his job as "easy" due to the love of Garth Brooks' fans
Stephen Butler from Newtownabbey performs as a Garth Brooks' tribute act with the band Thunder Rolls.
His love for the musician also goes back to his childhood.
"My mother was a fan when I was younger, she was always playing his music and buying his albums so I loved the songs.
"I knew, with me loving Garth and there being such a following in Ireland, I knew it was the right thing to do."
He went to the Dublin concert in 2022 and while he hasn't yet got tickets for the Ireland dates next year, he hopes to get tickets to at least one of them closer to the time.
Butler said in order to embody the stage persona of Garth Brooks, you "have to be passionate about his music"
"I was able to get four or five tickets about a week or two before the Croke Park shows, I'll definitely go - I have to go.
"His band is amazing, he's amazing, and his songs - he's got an endless amount of anthems."
Butler said in order to embody the stage persona of Garth Brooks, you "have to be passionate about his music".
"I'm not saying I'm as good as Garth Brooks, but I definitely have his enthusiasm.
"I talk about him and how much I love him throughout the songs and I just identify with them as much as I can.
"My job is easy, I just have to go on there and get everybody singing along with me."
Garth Brooks performing at the King's Hall in 1998
Butler says he thinks the reason Garth Brooks remains so enduringly popular in Ireland is because the people here identify so strongly with his songs.
"Everybody loves Friends In Low Places, people of Ireland love it, they love Callin' Baton Rouge.
"I speak to a lot of people after I play the shows and a lot of people identify with some of the words in the songs, they tell me about a relative that's passed and they seem to have some kind of identification with the songs Tomorrow Never Comes or Unanswered Prayers - it talks about love and about how Garth feels.
"And in amongst Thunder Rolls and the big hits that Garth has, he sings big rocky country rock and ballads, so it's exciting and it's sad - it's an emotional roller coaster," he said.
"And he's such a down-to-earth, genuine, caring person, he seems to be a good soul and I think people people identify with his personality.
"It's a big working-class country and they love someone that's genuine and that talks from the heart."
