{"id":714855,"date":"2026-06-04T16:21:14","date_gmt":"2026-06-04T16:21:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/714855\/"},"modified":"2026-06-04T16:21:14","modified_gmt":"2026-06-04T16:21:14","slug":"call-me-cmat-lets-write-a-song-about-my-public-transport-plight-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/714855\/","title":{"rendered":"Call me, CMAT. Let\u2019s write a song about my public transport plight \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

I hope CMAT<\/a> knows how proud we are of her. Certainly, pride was the overwhelming emotion that enveloped the crowd at her sold out St Anne\u2019s Park gig in Dublin<\/a> last weekend. <\/p>\n

I mean, she already knew she\u2019d made it, having been at the centre of Friday\u2019s Liveline discussion. While the discussion on RT\u00c9 Radio 1 was for saddening reasons \u2013 prompted by CMAT\u2019s declaration that comments about her body have tarnished her success \u2013 truly there is no apex greater than triggering a Liveline phone-in. <\/p>\n

Standing in the crowd at St Anne\u2019s Park, I felt there wasn\u2019t one of the 20,000 people who wouldn\u2019t go to war for Ciara Mary-Alice Thompson, the self-titled Dunboyne Diana. <\/p>\n

\u201cShe is like our Diana,\u201d I gushed to my friend as we roared along with CMAT\u2019s songs, which perfectly capture the life of a young woman in post-recession Ireland and give her fans impeccable rallying cries to bellow in a field in Raheny<\/a>. <\/p>\n

No, CMAT didn\u2019t marry a prince (yet), nor will she be immortalised by a tragic demise (if I have anything to do with it), but she does embody the wholesale adoration that was typically prompted by Lady Di. There\u2019s a campness associated with the adulation of both women, and the way CMAT has embraced it all is perfectly pitched. <\/p>\n

I love her. I love her songs, I love her style, I love how she moves around the stage like a woman possessed while her Very Sexy CMAT Band support her with enough charisma to generate 100 Elton John tribute songs. <\/p>\n

CMAT\u2019s most recent album, Euro-Country<\/a>, is a love letter to Ireland but also offers stinging commentary on the powers and processes that have decimated parts of our culture and economy. And it was on my epic journey home from St Anne\u2019s Park that I thought, \u201cCMAT could write a song about this.\u201d I had decided, once again, to put my faith in Dublin Bus<\/a>. When will I learn? <\/p>\n

\u201cUse public transport,\u201d the concert promoters had pleaded. With no car parks, no special city-centre services and no hope of engaging a taxi, we didn\u2019t have much choice. They\u2019ll have put plans in place, I told myself, sort of like a mantra, hopeful of some joined-up thinking in the travel strategy for a hectic summer weekend in a modern European city. <\/p>\n

Delirious with joy after the show, I separated from the group with another pal to help her locate her bike on the quieter side of St Anne\u2019s Park. I then trotted to the bus stop, my Transport for Ireland app promising that three buses were due in the next hour or so. I would bide my time and get one of those to the city centre. Simple! They might have even put on extra buses, I thought with idiotic naivety as the first of the rain began to fall. <\/p>\n

A few dozen other people were already at the stop with the same idea, and lots more were milling about, frantically jabbing at taxi apps and flapping redundant arms at the few cars passing. <\/p>\n

If the first two buses failing to materialise were the opening verses of the CMAT song about how the gobdaws in power have failed to provide a serviceable public-transport system, then the tragic scene of the third and final promised bus of the night sailing past us an hour later, seemingly packed to the gills and ignoring our frantically waving arms, would be the belter of a bridge. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Fans on CMAT\u2019s St Anne\u2019s Park gig: \u2018She speaks the language of love and the language of Ireland\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

A lone garda in one of those lightly branded Covid-era vehicles pulled up to tell us that it was highly unlikely any more Dublin buses would be making an appearance but that the promoters were sending around a \u201cclearance\u201d vehicle, and to wave down the double-decker that was doing the rounds. <\/p>\n

Obviously, the clearance bus didn\u2019t stop either. I resisted the urge to ring 999 to report the various transport injustices as a crime and began the three-hour walk home in the rain. <\/p>\n

At 1am, somewhere in Clontarf, I spotted a taxi turning into a housing estate, hedged my bets on the car reappearing on the main road and made a beeline for the estate entrance. My chariot home cost me \u20ac40, but I would have paid double. <\/p>\n

If CMAT does want to write a song about my public transport plight, I can offer some title suggestions. Dublin Bus Blues is a little obvious but gets the point across. I\u2019d Be Quicker Getting Home from Slane offers some cultural context. How about Double Wrecker, BusTed, Wheely Bad or Bleep Card? <\/p>\n

Call me, CMAT. Let\u2019s get in the studio. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I hope CMAT knows how proud we are of her. Certainly, pride was the overwhelming emotion that enveloped…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":714856,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[49,48,143025,259103,82136,75,25004,341,259102],"class_list":["post-714855","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-cmat","tag-dublin-bus","tag-emer-mclysaght","tag-entertainment","tag-for-you","tag-music","tag-raheny"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/714855","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=714855"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/714855\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/714856"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=714855"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=714855"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=714855"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}