GARTH: I am a Culchie!
GARTH Brooks is happy to identify, like many of the hundreds of thousands of rural fans who invaded Dublin over the past two weekends, as ‘a culchie’.
The Oklahoma man was speaking at a press conference ahead of his final Croke Park show last night – having spent the intervening week between the two concerts away from Dublin in rural Ireland.
Asked by the Irish Mail on Sunday whether this meant he was a culchie he– after receiving an explanation of the word and a quick pronunciation lesson – replied: ‘I can tell you this – I felt at home in Dingle. Everybody was very sweet to us at Dick Mack’s [pub in Dingle] and around that area. ‘So what does that make me?’ he laughed. And later he promised he and his wife Trisha Yearwood would return to Ireland soon, saying: ‘I can guarantee we’ll be back as visitors and just be fellow culchies.’
Brooks insisted: ‘You guys think we’re trying to kiss your ass, but I’m telling you that some countries excel in some things. You guys lead the world in how to be sweet to each other, and kind to people who visit.’
They revealed they have spent much of the last week ‘driving through the countryside’ – described by Yearwood as a hair-raising passenger experience. She joked with Brooks: ‘I found that if I squeezed in every time you passed a car it helped.’
While he added: ‘We’re told we went through 11 counties… Since I was driving, some of them we went through very quickly.’
He also revealed an unlikely silver lining to his 2014 concerts being cancelled over a dispute with local residents.
The singer said: ‘[My daughter] was turning 18 in 2014. She likes tattoos, so I promised her I’d get one when we were here together and when it fell through, that was the only thing I felt good about.’
He played the final show of his five-night residency in Croke Park last night, sending another 80,000 country music fans home happy to every corner of Ireland.