Some of the 20,000 people at the singer’s Dublin concert explain why they like her music, her positivity and her stance on Bertie AhernBody positivity: CMAT at BBC Radio 1's Big Weekend festival. Photograph: Joseph Okpako/WireImage Sun May 31 2026 - 12:20 • 4 MIN READ“My Junior Cert is in six days,” reads a makeshift poster being held up in the crowd at St Anne’s Park, in north Dublin, where more than 20,000 CMAT fans have gathered for the singer’s Saturday-night concert.It competes for attention with other paraphernalia being waved in the air, including a wedding veil, an orthopaedic boot and a flag that looks as if it comes from Blanchardstown shopping centre.As the crowd waits for CMAT to take to the stage, some at the front are lazily tossing a beach ball around while others practise a progression they learned from the line-dancing group Strut, one of the evening’s opening acts.Most striking are the masses of children on their parents’ shoulders: people of all ages have come to see CMAT perform at her biggest solo gig in Ireland so far.Among the younger folk in the crowd are Meabh Keeley, Robyn Duggan and Fenna Meagher, all 11 and 12. It’s their first time going to CMAT. What’s their favourite song of hers? They waste no time in reaching a consensus that it’s The Jamie Oliver Petrol Station.Meabh and CMAT are “both Meath women”, Meabh’s dad, Gerry Keeley, says; they have come from Slane, a few stone’s throws from CMAT’s native Dunboyne. “She’s the best thing to come out of Meath since Mick Lyons.”He points out that there are “grandparents, kids and grandkids” here. “I mean, she speaks the language of Ireland, doesn’t she – the language of love and the language of Ireland.”It’s not quite Niamh Kennedy and Emma Cosgrave’s first time seeing CMAT. “I’ve been to every concert I could,” says Kennedy, who initially saw her at the Trinity Ball before the singer released her first album, If My Wife New I’d Be Dead, in 2022.[ CMAT at St Anne’s Park review: Five-star performance by a pop star at the top of her gameOpens in new window ]They back CMAT’s stance on the former taoiseach Bertie Ahern, whom she criticised at the Ivor Novello Awards earlier this month for his remarks on immigration, and whom she blames for the effect the financial crash of 2008 had on her upbringing and those of many others.“As someone who’s living at home and feels like there’s no hope for young people in Ireland, I fully agree with her,” Kennedy says.Towards the back of the arena, where the crowds are less dense, clusters of fans are taking the opportunity to sit on the grass in the week’s unexpectedly long-lasting sunshine.Among them are Rosie Keane and Jenny O’Hanlon, who are from Artane and Clonee. They’ve just been talking about the body-shaming abuse CMAT received after appearing at BBC Radio 1’s Big Weekend festival in Sunderland last weekend.“It’s absolutely disgusting. She’s a fantastic artist. Take her for what she is,” O’Hanlon says. “We come in all shapes and sizes.”“If she was thin they’d have something to say as well,” Keane adds.Abby Rice, a recent graduate from Termonfeckin, in Co Louth, agrees with them about attempts to body-shame the singer. “It’s refreshing that she addresses it,” Rice says. “I love how she calls it out in every set she does, and gets thousands of people to boo anyone who would do that.” Over by the stage, the Cullen sisters have secured prime spots in front of the barrier. The whole family are fans, but Joanna Cullen’s “the one to talk to” about CMAT, they say.“Colm actually played at our wedding,” she says about Colm Conlan of the Very Sexy CMAT Band, who plays keyboards and provides backing vocals.The Cullens are disgusted by the recent body-shaming. “It just takes away from her brilliance,” Joanna’s sister Treasa says. “Stop trying to detract from the fact that we actually have a saviour among us.”“She’s the backdrop of everybody’s crisis. She’s what gets everybody through,” their mother, Tilde, says. “We’ve had a couple of crises in our family, and she is what everybody listens to when you’re absolutely in the shit.”After the gig, fans are buzzing as they leave the arena. “I thought it was just fantastic,” Joe says. “She’s like a reincarnation of Fleetwood Mac, and there’s a bit of Springsteen. We could see all those bands from the 1980s. She’s bringing it all together. For our generation, people in our late 40s, it’s just fantastic.”The fashion designer Joanne Hynes, who has dressed CMAT several times, is also making her way out of the concert. “She used to save up to buy my clothes,” Hynes says. “And then we connected. It was just lovely, because it’s all come back to that, back to the roots. I think she represents the idea that you can have a dream in Ireland.”IN THIS SECTION