Qualla: Slane Festival

Slane Festival: Introduction

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit catherinecronin from Kinvara, Co. Galway, Ireland, CC BY-SA 2.0. On 16 August 1981, Thin Lizzy played the first concert at Slane Castle. The Earl of Mount Charles, whose family had owned the place since 1701, had noticed that the sloping fields below his castle formed a perfect natural amphitheatre - a green bowl with the River Boyne curling along the bottom and the castle rising at the top. He called Aiken Promotions. They booked the bands. About 18,000 people turned up. The next year the Rolling Stones played. The year after that U2. Forty years later, Slane is one of the great open-air rock venues in the world, and it is still essentially a field on someone's estate in County Meath.

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Image: catherinecronin from Kinvara, Co. Galway, Ireland | CC BY-SA 2.0

Slane Festival: The Natural Amphitheatre

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Sara Einarsson, CC BY-SA 4.0. Slane Castle sits on the north bank of the Boyne, eight miles upstream of Drogheda, in a parkland landscaped by Capability Brown. The ground south of the castle slopes down toward the river in a near-perfect concave sweep - a natural arena that can hold 80,000 people facing one s...

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Image: Sara Einarsson | CC BY-SA 4.0

Slane Festival: The Eighties

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Sara Einarsson, CC BY-SA 4.0. Seven concerts in seven years. Thin Lizzy in 1981. The Rolling Stones in 1982. U2 in 1983 - although the castle was refused permission that year and the concert moved to Phoenix Park Racecourse in Dublin, the only time Slane has been held off-site. Bob Dylan in 1984, with Bono gu...

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Image: Sara Einarsson | CC BY-SA 4.0

Slane Festival: U2 Goes Home

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Sara Einarsson, CC BY-SA 4.0. U2 have headlined Slane more times than anyone else, and twice in the same year - 25 August and 1 September 2001 - because tickets for the first show sold out in 45 minutes and the Taoiseach asked the Minister for the Environment to fast-track legislation to allow a second one. T...

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Image: Sara Einarsson | CC BY-SA 4.0

Slane Festival: Everyone Else

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Sara Einarsson, CC BY-SA 4.0. Across forty years, the headline list reads like a museum of rock. Bryan Adams in 2000. Red Hot Chili Peppers in 2003 - their first Slane was 2001 as support; they came back top-billed two years later. Madonna in 2004, when one Irish manager said the crowd treated her like a foot...

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Image: Sara Einarsson | CC BY-SA 4.0

Slane Festival: Twenty-Two Years Old

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit MllePeterson, CC BY 2.0. The minimum age of entry was 18 for Slane's first 25 years. In 2006 it was reduced to 16 after complaints. Even with that, generations of Irish teenagers have travelled to Slane as a rite of passage - the long bus from Dublin, the walk down the hill from the village, the queue al...

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Image: MllePeterson | CC BY 2.0