Esther McCarthy: This is my story — nearly-marrying Noel Gallagher glory

The Gallagher Brothers, arriving in Cork in 1996 for their Páirc Uí Chaoimh gigs, blissfully unaware future Irish Examiner columnist Esther McCarthy will be in the VIP area. Pic: Dan Linehan

Did I ever tell you about the time I nearly married Noel Gallagher? 

The year is 1996, the day is August 14, and Oasis are in town. The sun shone strong, that day, my friends. 

I am at the beach, wearing my 19-year-old body, a swimsuit and a sarong. We are driving home from a day of sunning and swimming. 

I know some friends are going, and in those gloriously spontaneous, pre-mobile phone days, I decide to get dropped off at the Blackrock Rd and see what the craic is. 

I have no clothes, but my dad’s painting pants are in the boot, so I throw them on, roll up the waist, fashion the sarong into a wonky top and join the crowds milling down towards Páirc Uí Chaoimh.

I merge with three lads bouncing down the road, mid 20s, big Dublin heads on them, they have that sound buzz about them, do you know what I mean? 

When you’re on your own, your female Spidey sense is tingling away constantly, but I get a good feeling about these guys. 

Besides, I look like a scorched Worzel Gummidge, there’s no chance any of them are going to try for a ration of passion. The smell of emulsion for one thing, is a clear turn off. 

They ask me about the gates, and we start chatting. After we take the piss out of each others’ accents for a good half a mile, we become best buds. 

Turns out they have no tickets either, but their old school friend told them to meet them at the main gate, and he’d sort them out.

The friend turns out to be a big wig in MCD. While the security guards go get him, the lads warn me he could be persnickety and advise me to maybe skip the bonding bit I did with them, and perhaps not take the almighty piss out of him?

Your man comes out and talking to the lads, side-eying me as I stand there grinning silently like a loon. 

I’d say he took one look at the baggy paint-splattered pants, salty mad hair, cracked lips, and decides this must be what passes for Britpop fashion in Southern Ireland and he takes pity on me and lets me in. 

We all get VIP bracelets which include the holy grail of broke-student-chance-armery — a free bar and access to a half-clean toilet.

I don’t want to brag, friends, but believe me when I tell you, I drank those well-connected Dublin dotes under the table. 

Let’s just say, I could hold my own in the tequila slamming business back in the day. 

Wooden Leg McCarthy, they used to call me. (These days, two glasses of a Pinot Noir, and I have to be put to bed with a hot water bottle and a Kombucha.)

But anyway, because we focus maybe a little too much on the bar and not enough on the Prodigy and the actual main event, after they’d vomited up their own spleens, the boyos invite me back for the second night. 

It’s agreed we’ll meet in the bar of Jury’s Hotel first. One of their dads asked them to take his friend’s daughter along and they were meeting her there. 

They casually mention there’d be an after-party with Liam and Noel and the rest of the band if I want to go to that.

WELL! I act as nonchalant as one can with vast quantities of hard liquor, two grams of salt and a wedge of lemon up my nose.

The next day, I take about three hours getting ready: no messy, shapeless, seaweed smelling beach-bum for Noel and Liam!

I have so much makeup on, RuPaul would have told me to calm down a bit. 

I wear a small dress and big heels and when I totter into Jury’s, the lads walk straight past me. They literally don’t recognise me.

Then, in perfect Cork fashion, it turns out the daughter they are minding is a good friend of mine who lives around the corner, and she has her fabulous best friend with her. 

The three of us are dollied up to the nines, cackling away, lashing into the cocktails.

The lads are very hungover, confused at the costume change and a little bit frightened: “Eh, we’re going to a party with Oasis, shams, this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Another pint?”

So off we go to gig, take-two for me, toddling around with our VIP wristbands, we meet Eddie Irvine in the bar, and startle him by yelling we’ll see him at the party later, then the three of us elbow our way to the front of the stage and roar and dance along to every song. 

It remains one of the best gigs I’ve ever been to.

We have arranged to meet the Dublin trio after, but I get separated from the girls, lose my VIP bracelet, and the security guy won’t let me back into the bar (possibly because he’s seen me drink it dry the night before) then I meet a crowd from Galway that I sort of know and end up going to a party with them instead.

Ah, what could have been! Still I’m glad at how it all worked out. 

I’d have hated to have been the cause of Noel breaking up with Meg Matthews, and I’d Definitely Maybe have gotten headbutted by Liam — I just know I wouldn’t have been able to resist a light mocking of that accent. 

The girls told me later there was no sign of the Dublin trio. Which shouldn’t have made me feel better, but it did. 

If the lads are reading, I’ll meet ye at the gate in Croke Park next August, okay?