Fans danced on tables, streets were deserted and Dunphy gave McCarthy credit. Kathy Sheridan joined in the celebrations
You don't even have to like football. Or Sepp Blatter.
You just need a pulse. And a great, thumping heart. And a funny hat. And, and . . . well, what's wrong with leprechauns anyway, Eamo?
Here come the good times . . . Olé, olé olé olé . . . You'll neh-ver beat the Eye-rish . . . Low lie the fields . . . And (the one that had a middle-aged man, up on a table, sobbing cathartically into his wife's green wig) - We're all part of Jackie's/Micky's army, we're all off to - uh - Ko-oh-ree
No mention of Roy. Or Eamo. No drawing of lots. No surrender. No prisoners (and 16 yellow cards to prove they did thump lumps out of each other). No regrets.
Well, except for the Co Kildare barman who threatened to zap the music if people didn't get OFF the effin' tables, NOW! To a man, woman and child, they turned and chanted: You'll neh-ver beat the Eye-rish.
Pure joy. Italia '90 kind of joy? Getting there. Childish, uninhibited, good-natured euphoria, the kind that makes a nonsense of "national movements" and filled the rugby and GAA clubs with fans as hysterical as any soccer pub.
The kind that saw a satellite town like Celbridge - normally a hellish traffic snarl at 8.15 a.m. - look like a virtual ghost town at the same time yesterday morning.
The day when the first Cabinet meeting of the new Government took place and an emotional Taoiseach made it known to media that he'd only be taking questions on the World Cup.
The day when a subdued Eamon Dunphy admitted to Sky News that people were "very happy" and that - get this - "a lot of it was down to Mick McCarthy". And that other unfortunate business? "The Roy Keane controversy is over". Crikey.
The day when Paul McCartney's wedding took second place in Sky's headlines to the (good) fightin' Irish ("McCartney can get married any day in the week", snorted an unimpressed local) amid lamentation for the hapless exam students stuck in their French and History cauldrons.
The day when Killarney unveiled Ireland's biggest screen to 1,500 punters, with John Aldridge in attendance, who said the match was "like waiting on a bus: when they come, they all come along together".
The day when Irish people with English accents raised the rafters in London pubs and English commentators and presenters once again played out of their skins in their generosity towards Irish players and fans. If we reciprocate, this World Cup could mark the greatest cultural shift in Anglo-Irish history.
The day when Saint Robbie Keane's Daddy in a green shirt, sitting in a Tallaght pub, said with dignified understatement, he "was happy for the people of Tallaght".
OK, so it was never going to be "too tall a challenge" as Dunphy put it, but "they did it well", he added. And they did. Keane, Breen, Duff, Given . . . all icons now, even to those of us whose last glimpse of a soccer ball was circa 1994.
Green shirts in the last 16 left in the World Cup? The first time we've scored more than a single goal in a World Cup finals?
Oh yes, wept the man precariously balanced on a table, there's something to celebrate all right: "Mediocre doesn't really describe us any more, does it? This is the day we beat our demons.
"The humiliation has rolled off us".
So say hello to Korea, if you have the €2,000-odd to get there. And if you're still in Japan, the €1,500 to move on with the magic.
And bring on the Spaniards. Or ideally, the South Africans.
As for all those not yet converted, remember that Sunday is Father's Day. Indulge the man.