DOWN:"WE FLEW the flag when the flag had to be flew." So the saying goes around these parts.
And indeed flying the flag appears to be a particularly Northern trait – if only there was agreement on which one. While both traditions are very good at it, your average Down Gael has exceeded him/herself in the run-up to this All-Ireland final.
Even McAnulty’s undertakers in Warrenpoint has shunned its normal sobriety and produced a flag on its shop front.
Newry is fluttering red and black with excitement, but short journeys farther into the heartland of football in and around the Mournes reveal a whole new level of the practice.
Mayobridge, goal-poacher Benny Coulter’s territory, is fabulously decked out. A mile or two away, high on the Mourne hills lies written “Up Down” in massive white letters.
The old cry is repeated on Hen Mountain a mile or two along the bumpy road. Hilltown, too, is plastered in the red and black.
On the shores of Carlingford Lough, Warrenpoint is choked in red and black. Nearby Rostrevor, however, is in a league of its own.
There are so many flags in Rostrevor, so many miles of red and black bunting strung between its lamp-posts that the scene, like the Great Wall of China, must be visible from space. The town is blazing with colour.
So too in the main streets of Newcastle and Castlewellan, Dundrum and Downpatrick, Loughinisland and Crossgar. In Kilcoo, Noleen Morgan’s Friesian cow has been painted red and black.
Yet there is another side to this county where there is less of a frenzy. If there is any enthusiasm for the county team amid the drumlins of unionist Down, it is being kept in-lodge.
Dromara is flagless. There is no “Good Luck Lads” banner. The only exhortation is a reminder that “the wages of sin is death” on a corner near the square.
Dromore, too, appears outwardly unaware of the buzz. Clough has removed its loyal regalia after the summer marches and replaced the old union flags with newer and even bigger ones.
The atmosphere is calm in Holywood, serene in Bangor, Donaghadee and Millisle.
The difference between the GAA parishes and their less than Gaelic neighbours may appear outwardly stark. But it is not Northern sporting apartheid.
Many unionists are keeping a close eye on things but without losing the run of themselves. Indeed many have a “sneakin’ regard” for the oul team – some even have tickets.
How did they manage that? For while there is an abundance of just about everything GAA-related across south Down, there are no tickets to be found.
Tomorrow a fair percentage of the population around Newry and the Mournes will make for Jones’s Road. Up around the flagless northern end of the county, they’ll probably, quietly, opt for the TV.
Cork will be taking on the toughest half-county they’ve ever faced.