A record crowd at Croke Park, the biggest music festival of the year, an all-singing, all-dancing celebration of South American music; and its all happening within a 50-mile radius of the capital. As the woman on the radio says, commuters can expect delays.
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Liam on the comeback trail at Witnness I: Liam Howlett with The Prodigy
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But there is one ray of sunshine, in fact several. Over the weekend, the weather will be dry and often sunny with highs of 20 degrees Celsius; in the east. So the temperature will at least attempt to match the heat generated by the dancers and musicians a-leapin’ and a-hollering all over Drogheda, Co Louth for the annual Samba Festival.
The beat begins tonight when the Brazilian Ambassador launches three days of Latin-influenced music and dancing, culminating in a parade and a late-night gig by latin jazz outfit Chase No Straighterat the rugby club on Sunday night.
Bands from Ireland, Scotland and England - as well a few from Cuba - will take over Drogheda for the weekend. "Virtually every pub in the town has music of some kind throughout the weekend," says Paul O’Hanrahan, director of the Droichead Arts Centre.
Festival perennials the Hothouse Flowers will provide one of Saturday night's highspots when they play open-air at Bolton Square at 6 p.m. Others playing over the weekend include, Havana Che, Alma Latina, Sambangraand Lua- featuring former Drogheda resident and Waterboy (in that order) Colin Blakey.
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Liam on the comeback trail at Witnness II: Liam Gallagher with Oasis
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But onto every festival a little rain must fall - thundery showers are a distinct possibility tonight. And those heading for Witnness tomorrow can ill afford to feel smug. Some showers are predicted for Saturday evening.
All 40,000 tickets for the festival at Fairyhouse Racecourse have been sold, organisers said today.
Gardaí have warned fans not to turn up without tickets, adding checks will be set up on all approach routes to the Co Meath site. Anyone without a ticket will not be permitted past the security checkpoints.
Acts appearing include The Prodigy, Primal Scream, Chemical Brothers, Spiritualized, the Beta Band, Mercury Rev, Foo Fighters, Green Day, Oasis, Damien Rice, The Devlins, Basement Jaxx, Badly Drawn Boy, Sonic Youthand Decal.
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A view from Croke Park's Cusak stand at the newly redeveloped Hogan stand, the upper tier of which will be occupied for the first times tomorrow
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In Dublin, there is the small matter of the Leinster Football Final. Kildare take on Dublin in a game that will see the upper tier of the new Hogan Stand open for the first time. Every one of the available 75,000 seats is expected to be filled making it the biggest Croker crowd for 40 years.
Approach routes to all of the above will be chocker block with restrictions in place. The N2 and N3 around the Ratoath and Trim junctions respectively will be particularly busy. Drogheda, a bottle kneck at the best of times, will be particularly busy for Sunday’s parade and Drumcondra, Ballybough and Summerhill will be, well, Drumcondra, Ballybough and Summerhill on the day of a big final - except more so.
Kildare fans should also be aware there will be racing at the Curragh this weekend. So while traffic in a large part of the east will be like Ranelagh on a wet Tuesday morning in December, the rest of the country will be traffic-free.
Alas no. The Muster Football Final takes place in Thurles, there is racing at Wexford and Killarney and God knows how many Sunday drivers in the wrong place at the wrong time. Oh, and the Galway Arts Festival begins this Monday.
So while away your time in the car or coach this weekend by getting the sunroof open, whipping out your WAP phones and surfing all the intersting stuff ireland.com. Hooray!