{"id":69810,"date":"2025-12-24T20:13:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-24T20:13:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/69810\/"},"modified":"2025-12-24T20:13:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-24T20:13:08","slug":"bono-joins-annual-dublin-city-centre-christmas-eve-busking-session","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/69810\/","title":{"rendered":"Bono joins annual Dublin city centre Christmas Eve busking session"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Hansard opened the annual event on Wednesday night, telling the large crowd that more than 30 artists were waiting to perform.<\/p>\n<p>Among them were the band The Riptide Movement and singer-songwriter Shobsy.<\/p>\n<p>Danny O\u2019Donoghue from The Script and Danny O\u2019Reilly from The Coronas also made an appearance together.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/2.82886049.jpg\" alt=\"Grafton Street Christmas Eve annual busk 2025\" data-title=\"Grafton Street Christmas Eve annual busk 2025\" data-copyright-holder=\"PA Wire\" data-copyright-notice=\"PA Wire\/PA Images\" data-credit=\"Conor O Mearain\" data-usage-terms=\"\"  \/>Danny O\u2019Donoghue (Conor O Mearain\/PA)<\/p>\n<p>U2 frontman Bono was one of the last to take to the stage, performing a rendition of Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) with singer May.<\/p>\n<p>The event came to an end with a rousing performance of the Pogues classic Fairytale Of New York, during which May wished the late Shane MacGowan a \u201chappy birthday for tomorrow\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>The traditional gig marks its 15th anniversary this year and raises funds for the Dublin Simon Community, a charity which provides services to people in seven counties who are homeless or at risk of homelessness.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/2.78565659.jpg\" alt=\"Grafton street Christmas Eve annual busk\" data-title=\"Grafton street Christmas Eve annual busk\" data-copyright-holder=\"PA Archive\" data-copyright-notice=\"PA Archive\/PA Images\" data-credit=\"Evan Treacy\" data-usage-terms=\"\"  \/>Shobsy takes part in the annual Christmas Eve busk (Evan Treacy\/PA)<\/p>\n<p>The event started in 2010 as an impromptu sing-song on Grafton Street, one of the capital\u2019s main shopping thoroughfares.<\/p>\n<p>It has now become a more official and organised event outside The Gaiety Theatre nearby.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/2.82885967.jpg\" alt=\"Grafton Street Christmas Eve annual busk 2025\" data-title=\"Grafton Street Christmas Eve annual busk 2025\" data-copyright-holder=\"PA Wire\" data-copyright-notice=\"PA Wire\/PA Images\" data-credit=\"Conor O Mearain\" data-usage-terms=\"\"  \/>Glen Hansard and Mick McLoughlin (Conor O Mearain\/PA)<\/p>\n<p>Hundreds of people sang along to a mix of Christmas tunes and Irish hits, with viewers tuning into the livestream from Berlin, London and New York.<\/p>\n<p>In the crowd were Dubliners returning from abroad.<\/p>\n<p>Jason Hanaway, who lives between New York and Poland, said the event was \u201cbrilliant\u201d, adding \u201conly in Dublin\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Maria Campani, from Italy, has made the city her home and says she comes every year, adding: \u201cIt\u2019s a great event that brings everyone together.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hansard opened the annual event on Wednesday night, telling the large crowd that more than 30 artists were&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":69811,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[128,130,129],"class_list":{"0":"post-69810","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-reading","8":"tag-reading-city","9":"tag-reading-city-headlines","10":"tag-reading-city-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69810","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69810"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69810\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/69811"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}