{"id":11878,"date":"2025-08-20T15:43:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-20T15:43:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/11878\/"},"modified":"2025-08-20T15:43:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-20T15:43:09","slug":"family-of-lifelong-oasis-fan-who-died-in-2023-share-sacred-moment-at-dublin-gig-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/11878\/","title":{"rendered":"Family of lifelong Oasis fan who died in 2023 share \u2018sacred\u2019 moment at Dublin gig \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Oasis<\/a> is an emotional subject for Chantelle Guilfoyle (49) and her three children from Co Offaly, who attended the reunion concert in Croke Park<\/a> on Saturday.<\/p>\n

Her late husband Noel was a lifelong super fan of Oasis, collecting their records, magazines, books, newspapers and regularly travelling to concerts around the world. <\/p>\n

\u201cOur children Mark (27), Indi (16) and Hunter (13) are all also inspired and intrigued by Oasis, the voice of a generation that continues to resonate; a catalyst for human connection, being joyful, present and free, a rare gift,\u201d Guilfoyle says.<\/p>\n

Noel died by suicide in June 2023. Last month, when freeing his ashes at sunrise in the Mojave Desert in California, the family played the Oasis song Champagne Supernova..<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had no signal and miraculously our kid Mark had only two tracks on his phone, Layla and Champagne Supernova. The latter was meant to be the last track at our wedding party in 2007, but the DJ … forgot.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sixteen years later, Guilfoyle, a HR manager, says: \u201cI still hold a slight grudge, but maybe this was meant to happen, as we shared our last dance together in the desert with our children to Champagne Supernova.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hearing the Gallagher brothers play the song live in Croke Park left her with \u201cno words … tears of sorrow and joy say it all … [It was the] gig of my life and sharing this experience with our children felt sacred.\u201d<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Oasis at Croke Park: A jubilant, air-punching night delivers the nostalgia we all came forOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

\"ChantelleChantelle Guilfoyle, whose husband Noel died in 2023, with their children Mark (27), Indi (16) and Hunter (13) in the Mojave Desert in California last month where they spread his ashes <\/p>\n

The Saturday night Oasis gig in Croke Park was a \u201conce in a lifetime\u201d moment too for Melissa Moloney (54) a civil servant from south Co Dublin. <\/p>\n

\u201cEven a couple of days later it still feels so magical,\u201d she says. \u201cI\u2019m looking back at videos of the gig, and thinking like, \u2018Wow. I was there in the middle of it\u2019. It was just an out of body experience.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m lucky to be old enough to have seen them at their first gig in Ireland in September 1994. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re going to take the hit of the cost of the ticket cause you don\u2019t know if you\u2019re going to see them again.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Gallagher brothers\u2019 Irish heritage is a huge connection point to Moloney: \u201cIt\u2019s like they\u2019re one of you.\u201d <\/p>\n

Susie Keeling (47) from Clonskeagh enjoyed the \u201craucous, joyous, singalong trip down memory lane\u201d so much on Saturday that she came back on her own on Sunday to stand outside the stadium and sing \u201cone more tune\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the mid-90s it was the soundtrack of my life … I saw them in Slane in 1995 and I got in a crush at the front and crowd-surfed at the age of 17. I can\u2019t put my finger on it, it\u2019s something about the guitar riffs and getting down with it.\u201d <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Noel Gallagher left \u2018shaky\u2019 after Oasis after-party in DublinOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

\"SusieSusie Keeling: ‘We were nearly levitating with excitement arriving at Croke Park.’ <\/p>\n

Keeling also went to the Oasis concert in August 1996 in P\u00e1irc U\u00ed Chaoimh, on the eve of her Leaving Cert results. <\/p>\n

The 2025 gig was a full circle moment: \u201cI was lucky enough to be there on Saturday with the same schoolfriends and my eldest daughter, Aoibhe and her schoolfriend, similarly a fan, 18, waiting for those [Leaving Cert] results and on the cusp of life and all its possibilities.\u201d<\/p>\n

Keeling, who works in research and operations, says she\u2019s \u201cfinding it hard to concentrate on real life\u201d in the week after the concert. \u201cI actually can\u2019t come down from it.\u201d<\/p>\n

They had seats in the lower Cusack stand and Keeling says while \u201cthe queues were chronic, I don\u2019t want to dwell on it\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you were going to the toilet or to get a drink, you had to miss songs, so we planned it.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the concert she \u201cjust felt so young again, and so free. Not worrying about the mortgage and the kids.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cI was telling everyone, Half the World Away is my favourite tune, it\u2019s going to be played at my funeral.\u201d<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Oasis weekend in pictures: Liam and Noel Gallagher gave fans two joyous gigsOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

\"SusieSusie Keeling: ‘The only downer, aside from the crazy queues, is that it is over’ <\/p>\n

While the brothers blew the crowd away, the management of the 80,000 people entering Croke Park stadium left a lot to be desired, according to several attendees. <\/p>\n

Alison Breen from Glasnevin, Dublin, described the situation as \u201cdangerous and potentially volatile\u201d with people \u201cshouting at staff\u201d in frustration.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had my ticket scanned and had a search done. Nobody at any stage said get a wristband. I went into a narrow space with a throng of people, and at the turnstiles I was refused entry because I didn\u2019t have a wristband,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\"JohnJohn Fitzpatrick: ‘It was raucous on the pitch with an all out beer bomb offensive’ <\/p>\n

\u201cOther people were being refused as well and walking back through the throng, which looked very dangerous. They gave me a way through a barrier and a one way exit. When I got back, they said there were no wristbands left.\u201d<\/p>\n

Breen says the stressful situation caused her to \u201cactually burst into tears\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201dNone of the security staff knew what was happening. There was no information given to the crowd, it ruined the beginning of it to be honest.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, John Fitzpatrick (51) from Killiney, Co Dublin, who attended the Sunday gig, also found the crowd management was \u201cparticularly poor\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was on the green route, a lot of people didn\u2019t seem to be aware that they had a route. The signage was poor. A lot of people were getting caught out, friends were getting split up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Going through the tunnels to enter the pitch \u201cwas tight\u201d, Fitzpatrick says.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was worried it could turn out nasty. There were loads of temporary urinals on the way in, and not enough for women so that was slowing down everything.\u201d<\/p>\n

Breen says she spent 45 minutes \u201cgoing around in circles\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI tried not to dwell on it, I didn\u2019t want it to be the overriding memory, and nobody got hurt.\u201d <\/p>\n

But one minute after Breen and her husband arrived in the stadium, \u201cthe band [were] out and the stress of getting in evaporated. Each song was performed to perfection\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe memories attached to these tunes are of a different time.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Oasis is an emotional subject for Chantelle Guilfoyle (49) and her three children from Co Offaly, who attended…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11879,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[75],"tags":[1007,52,18,117,19,17,1006,1005,1004],"class_list":{"0":"post-11878","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-croke-park","9":"tag-dublin","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-ie","13":"tag-ireland","14":"tag-liam-gallagher","15":"tag-noel-gallagher","16":"tag-oasis"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11878","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11878"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11878\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11879"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11878"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11878"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11878"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}