For anyone waking up this morning with a lingering niggle about admitting remnants of empire to the home of the Gael, there is an antidote. Get out and talk to them. (This may not be as easy as it seems. They got only 7,000 tickets, poor sods, and their lovely, white England jerseys are so prone to staining that they tend to keep them for good wear, so the fans are not that easy to spot. Or else, they're afraid of us), writes Kathy Sheridan
Anyway, talk is good. The Four Seasons in Ballsbridge would be ideal of course. It's where Jonny and the lads are staying, although failing to put them up at Jurys of Croke Park seems like a missed marketing opportunity. Security is tight, however, what with the two gardaí and several plain-clothes types inside the gate. But Paddy Cullen's up the road has five English gentlemen holding up the bar and we can report that far from being the stereotypical emissaries of Her Majesty, the confusion of loyalties among them is epic and - they insist - typical of their land of origin.
Paddy Campbell from Ballymena, living in Watford, supports England "madly" at football, but Ireland at rugby. Phil McDonald from Wolverhampton "will always wear an Irish shirt - unless they're playing England". David Apthorpe from northeast London is an England fan, though he has an Irish father-in-law and, really, he should be in Cardiff roaring on Arsenal in the Carling Cup final. John Connolly from Ruislip has west Cork ancestry and Gerry Hickey from Paddington has roots in Clonmel and Killorglin. This, then, is how the auld enemy looks, close up.
Are they aware of the national debate over recent weeks? Yes, to a degree ranging from "only vaguely" to "of course".
"Do we care? No," says David definitively. "It's a sporting event - why should we care? This is our 20th year here. We come for the craic, not for the history."
In Kiely's of Donnybrook, Geoff Bowers from Coventry and Rod Hennessy from Hinckley are not so sanguine. The two soft-spoken friends, full of stories of Irish warmth and hospitality in other times, confess to being "slightly concerned" now. "Whatever the demonstrators say they're about, the feeling is that it's anti-English. It would be such a shame if something like this, which has nothing to do with our generation, were to taint the atmosphere."
For the record, Geoff doesn't even approve of God Save the Queen on these occasions. "That's a British Isles thing. I believe it should be Land of Hope and Glory."
Meanwhile, BBC World has chosen a table in Kiely's from which to broadcast its Europe Today slot. Across the road, various international camera crews are poised to catch the punters arriving in Donnybrook. The President chose this week to visit Belfast Harlequins, a rugby club that has welcomed its GAA neighbours, St Bridget's, to share its facilities. The word on the streets is that at 5.30pm today, Ireland will sit the definitive test of its maturity.