Pop, VIPs, abdication, unity - other State Paper stories

Updated / Saturday, 27 Dec 2025 07:43 Heat and hysteria: Boyzone in concert in 1995 By Fiachra Ó Cionnaith Harry Manning Evelyn O'Rourke Some other stories from the State Papers include concerns over concert safety, Irish files about the abdication of King Edward VIII, VIP disruption at Dublin Airport, CSO relocation to Cork, a UN future for Northern Ireland, outsourcing cervical smear tests and British attitudes to Irish Unity: Call for new concert rules after 'heat and hysteria' of Boyzone gig The government's attorney general said there was an "urgent need" for new laws to clampdown on what type of concerts were allowed to take place in Ireland after 12 people were reportedly hospitalised with "heat and hysteria" after a 1995 Boyzone gig. The office of the attorney general issued the unusual call for action after the incident took place during a concert in the National Basketball Arena in Tallaght, Dublin, at the height of the band's fame. After garda reports said a number of people had to be "carried outside", the then government's attorney general Dermot Gleeson wrote to then justice minister Nora Owen to say there was an "urgent need" to restrict future concerts due to the reported hospitalisations. The planned gig in Tallaght had already been subject to "serious local objections", and resulted in a temporary licence not being applied for the holding of the concert, with gardaí instead agreeing to an arrangement where they could enter the premises at any time they felt necessary to calm any incidents. However, despite the arrangement, Mr Gleeson still had concerns, writing six weeks after the concert that Ireland had "an inadequate statutory basis for dealing with music concerts where large numbers of people, particularly young people, congregate". British asked Irish not to publish any files on 1936 abdication The British government asked Irish officials to withhold from public release any documentation relating to the 1936 abdication of King Edward VIII. Confidential files released as part of the State Archive revealed Britain's sensitivity to any documentation releases in respect of the Royal Family despite the passage of almost 32 years since the king stepped down after less than a year on the throne in favour of his younger brother, King George VI, so he could marry an American divorcee. London was particularly concerned that what it termed "a crucial conversation" between taoiseach Eamon de Valera and Assistant Permanent Undersecretary of State for Dominion Affairs Harry Batterbee about King Edward VIII's position in respect of his desire to marry US divorcee Wallis Simpson may be contained in Irish records. On 16 June 1967, the British Ambassador contacted the Department of External Affairs (now the Department of Foreign Affairs) to inform them that London would not release any of the papers in respect of the abdication of King Edward VIII three decades before. An Irish civil servant also noted that the Secretary of the Department of External Affairs, H. J. McCann "was disposed to fall in with the British wishes in this...

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