It's Thursday evening, and the streets surrounding Fairview Park are thick with rosy cowboy hats and never-ending streams of glitter. They’ve come in droves to worship at the altar of Ireland’s Patron Saint of Country-Pop: CMAT.

CMAT at Fairview Park Shot by Patricia Rosingana (xbadbon)

The Dunboyne singer, Ciara Mary Alice Thompson, emerges onstage in a billow of white smoke to an abbreviated version of ‘Nashville', clad in an upcycled Dublin GAA kit and leopard print heels.

From there, she breaks into ‘California', a tour de force from her sophomore album Crazymad, For Me. It feels colossal in scope – and at the centre of it all is Thompson’s roaring, elastic voice that has been likened to Patsy Cline and Loretta Lynn, but truly brooks no comparison. She is a sight to behold – and a rare treat to hear live.

CMAT at Fairview Park Shot by Patricia Rosingana (xbadbon).jpg

The spectacle hardly stops there: camp choreographed dance-breaks alongside her keyboardist Púca, a live debut of a song she wrote in her teens, a golden baroque mirror centre stage with a hidden camera to address fans, a wardrobe change and a dazzling set, bedecked with performances that brought encore-level energy to every song.

“I’m genetically 100 percent Dungarvan,” she remarks. “But do you know who else is genetically from Dungarvan?” From there, she throws herself headlong into a jaw-dropping rendition of ‘Wuthering Heights’ by fellow Dungarvanite Kate Bush.

CMAT at Fairview Park Shot by Patricia Rosingana (xbadbon)

The surprises keep coming as she introduces the Boy from Michigan John Grant - on the eve of releasing his sixth studio album – to the stage for a booming duet of ‘Where Are Your Kids Tonight?’, but not before both artists get on their knees to genuflect in each other’s presence. Thompson receives a surprise of her own when, during ‘Have Fun!’, several people in the crowd hold up their phone torches plastered in green paper.

With Thompson’s family in attendance, the singer reminds the crowd of her “opposite of a nepo-baby” rise, all the while gazing back over the hard yards that led her here.

CMAT at Fairview Park Shot by Patricia Rosingana (xbadbon)

‘I Wanna Be A Cowboy, Baby!' is dedicated to a free Palestine, to raucous cheers, as the crowd breaks into the “The Dunboyne County Meath Two-Step.” Even the security join in...

Before she closes the show, Thompson proclaims it’s time to go (by way of the 17, her preferred Dublin bus route apparently – which has now been discontinued!) but not before bursting into ‘Stay For Something,’ an insouciant, rip-roaring highlight to set the venue ablaze in one final sonic blessing.

Among Thompson’s many gifts as a singer and songwriter, her greatest may be the ability to translate the personal into universal experience, which translates marvellously in her beguiling live theatrics.

CMAT at Fairview Park Shot by Patricia Rosingana (xbadbon)

In this realm, her music acts as a map for listeners to overlay their own journeys of tribulation, triumph, and transcendence. To put it plainly: “She really gets it,” says a teary-eyed teenager to her friend in front of me.

Thompson's narratives are not a world apart from the lyrical oeuvres of female stars like Lorde and Taylor Swift, but they're perhaps sharper in her pure, unadulterated blend of humour, euphoria and heartbreak (“You could say this is the Ciara’s Tour,” Thompson quips in reference to the Swift’s Era’s).

CMAT at Fairview Park Shot by Patricia Rosingana (xbadbon)

Tonight, CMAT more than lives up to her renown. To a sold-out crowd at Fairview Park, the Rhinestone Cowgirl brings a flame-haired charm offensive, bolstered by her stage theatrics and raw magnetic talent.

CMAT at Fairview Park Shot by Patricia Rosingana (xbadbon)

“Ten or 11 years ago I was playing an open mic night in the Bleeding Horse,” CMAT chimes. “Now I’m playing in a tent to 8,000 people. And no one is more surprised than me.”

It is a self-effacing assessment that is worth turning on its head. Standing onstage at Fairview, Ciara Mary Alice Thompson has come a long way from Camden Street. And no one is less surprised than us.

CMAT at Fairview Park Shot by Patricia Rosingana (xbadbon)