'I've been a superfan since I was little and this is the first time I'll get to see Garth Brooks'

Garth Brooks fans on what it means to get a ticket to one of his shows in September

Caroline Duke and her cardboard cut out of Garth Brooks.

Caroline Duke was up all night on Wednesday preparing to jump into the virtual queue. After experiencing the crushing heartbreak of 2014, she was determined to get her hands on tickets for this autumn's Garth Brooks gigs, and she did. She'll be attending three nights of the singer's five-night run at Croke Park next September. 

"It feels like a dream," she says. "I had three tickets for the last one - the opening night, the middle night and the closing night, so the fact that I have three tickets to this one is unreal." A true superfan, Duke has loved Garth Brooks for as long as she can remember. 

"I grew up listening to his music, I was only 12 when he came in 1997. I had his television appearances recorded on VHS and I'd watch them and I used to dream that one day I'd get to see him."

She's part of the generation who grew up during Garth Brooks mania. Ever since he sold out the then-called Point Depot in 1994, followed by a three-night run at Croke Park in 1997, there has been a frenzied love of Garth in Ireland. And the feeling is mutual. He recorded a song called Ireland and released it on his 1995 album Wild Horses, in which he sang "Ireland I am coming, home I can see your rolling fields of green."

Caroline knows the song well, but her favourite Garth Brooks song has to be The Red Strokes, from his 1993 album In Pieces. "I just love it." 

In 2014, in an effort stem the tide of grief at the concert cancellations, her mother gifted her with a life-sized cardboard cut out of Garth. "It was almost as good as the real thing," she says, "but I can't believe I'm actually going to get to see him in real life this time." 

Last week, when the news started trickling in that the dates would go ahead, Caroline says she couldn't believe it. "It looked like I might not actually get them this morning and then it happened and I was so happy that I stayed waiting." 

Duke says that her love of Garth is down in large part to her stepfather Damien. "We listen to the music together - it's our thing." Damien promised his step-daughter that if Garth Brooks put on another concert, he would get her a ticket, and just like that - he did. 

'He was trying to find presents for his daughter on Grafton Street'

Anna O'Donoghue knows all about superfans - her mother is one of Garth Brooks' biggest fans. 

"Growing up, you couldn't open the door of my house without country music blaring back at you. Line dancing, stetsons, and of course, Garth Brooks. My mother is the biggest fan. When he played The Point in 1994, she and all her nieces and nephews, who are now in their 40s, travelled from Kerry in Dublin for the gig."

Devastated, eight-year-old Anna shed tears as she watched them drive off without her, but it was on her mother's return that the real green-eyed monster set in. 

"She told me she met Garth Brooks on Grafton Street. There were no camera phones or anything at that time and no one had a camera with them so she didn't get a photo but someone did ask him to sign the back of a Lotto ticket."  

Anna's mother explains that Garth was a very busy man. "He was trying to look for presents for his daughter so we gave him suggestions and went to help him pick something out. The stetson, of course, began to give his identity away so he had to leave as a larger crowd was gathering"

For the Christmas of 1996, Anna was given a ticket to Brooks' first Croke Park gig. "Myself, my mom and the same nieces and nephews made the trip to Dublin. Them in the pitch, me in the stand - as I was only 11. To think that, 24 years later we'll be in the same stand, hand-in-hand singing about tomorrow never coming. Maybe one day I’ll meet him too - you bet she never lets me live it down."

A night out, out

Ciara O'Flynn with Jane, twins Flynn and Harry and James.

"He better play all the classics, that's all I'm saying." Paediatric nurse Ciara O'Flynn was making breakfast for her seven-year-old and five-year-old twins as she waited patiently for two tickets to the Sunday night Garth Brooks gig. 

"I was pottering around the kitchen with my fingers crossed, and as I saw the numbers rising I didn't think I'd have a chance, but then I got them and I was thrilled with myself," she says. O'Flynn, who is just off a round of night shifts on CUH's Puffin Ward says that she can't wait for the concerts. 

"I love music, and this gig is going to be one to remember - you can just feel it, can't you?" Ciara had a ticket for the last time as well, bought for her by a friend of hers, and she has high hopes for this one. 

As for what she's hoping to hear on the night, she expects The Thunder Rolls, Callin' Baton Rouge and The River to be top of the setlist. Ciara will be treating the concert as a night 'out, out' with her boyfriend James, and she can't wait.