A prominent Wexford bar has been forced to apologise after cancelling a musician's upcoming bookings due to a row over rebel songs in his setlist.
Irish musician Luke Whitty was due to play several upcoming gigs at the Crown Bar on the quays of Wexford town, but they were abruptly cancelled after customers complained about his singing songs such as 'Grace' and 'Come Out Ye Black And Tans' during a gig at the pub last weekend.
Whitty said that he only played the songs after he was asked to by members of the audience, and said in a social media post that "99.9%" of the crowd had enjoyed his set.
The conflict between Whitty and the Crown Bar ultimately saw his upcoming gigs in the pub cancelled, but the bar have since been forced into a public apology.
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Wexford Crown Bar apologises after banning Rebel Songs from musician's setlist
Saturday night's live music in the Crown Bar in Wexford has led to a major fallout, after a small section of customers complained about musician Luke Whitty's singing of rebel songs as part of his set.
Despite Whitty's claims that "99.9%" of the audience enjoyed the set, he would later be contacted by a manager of the bar to raise the concerns of those patrons, in a discussion which led to his future gigs being cancelled.
Whitty took to Facebook to explain the Wexford Crown Bar's decision to abruptly cancel his upcoming bookings at the venue, saying that in the phone call he had been told that rebel songs were "controversial and may offend people."
Whitty went on to explain how the decision to remove his listings was ultimately settled on:
He gave me the option to continue to have gigs but under the restrictions that I was not allowed play rebel tunes ever again, to which I replied, 'I am a proud Irishman and nobody is going to tell me what I can and cannot sing."
He responded by saying if that's your beliefs then u are no longer welcome and then informed me that my gigs for the foreseeable future were no longer required
A major backlash ensued against the pub, even after the Wexford Crown Quarter attempted to diffuse the situation with a Facebook post hailing the role of trad music in the local area, and wishing the Wolfe Tones well in their recently announced retirement.
That did not dissipate the wave of anger against the pub, however, and the Crown ultimately issued a public apology to Whitty on Wednesday morning:
Firstly, we would like to extend our sincere and full apology in relation to the phone call you had yesterday with one of our managers and the stance that was taken during this conversation.
The call was made in response to a customer complaint he received in relation to the nature of the music you were playing on the Saturday evening. The manager now fully appreciates he overreacted during the conversation, and he regrets the offence caused. Our intention and desire is to always provide an enjoyable atmosphere for both our customers and artists, at all times.
We would love the opportunity to speak to you in person. We did try to reach out to you yesterday to apologise, clearly it was not our intention to cause any annoyance, but now fully understand how we did so.
We have always enjoyed having you play in The Crown. This is unchanged. We value your loyalty and sincerely hope you will consider continuing to play in Crown Quarter in the future.
However, Whitty has since confirmed that he has no interest in returning to the bar after the episode, saying that the statement from the Crown is nothing but "damage control" and saying he "couldn't go back."
He has since received offers to play in bars in Cork, Tipperary, and Belfast, as well as further afield in London and Lanzarote.
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