The feel-good factor is over, writes Katherine Holmquist. Depression starts now. Who cares who forms the next government? The World Cup is finished. A page has been ripped from our book of hopes and we will never be as optimistic again.
We've lost our captain, Roy Keane, one of the greatest mid-fielders in the world. We want Keane on the pitch, not on the plane.
We will not get over this, no matter what Jimmy Magee says. Roy was the spirit and soul of not just the Irish team, but of the greater Team Ireland and it was up to Mick McCarthy to manage him, nurture him and keep him within stable boundaries.
It's our children that are most confused and disenchanted. Keane is their hero. They believed that Ireland could win, and, innocent as it may seem, Ireland was going to win because of Keane.
How do we explain to them that their dreams are dead because of ridiculous, petty squabbles between adults? Especially when the child in all of us feels let down by McCarthy's narrow-mindedness.
If you are a manager of vision, you do not let go of your ultimate resource. You let him throw tantrums, if that's what he has to do. You let a key player like Keane vent his concerns in the media, if it makes him feel better.
You let him act like a prima donna, if that's the case. You make sure he's happy with the travel arrangements and training facilities. When he's working his magic on the field, it's all worth it.
McCarthy has called Keane a "disruptive influence". Sorry, Mick, but all geniuses are disruptive. They mix things up and flip the world on its axis.
It's why they're great. As a manager with an eye on the wider picture, you have to be even bigger than a Roy Keane.
It doesn't matter whether you've got official World Cup balls in Saipan or not, you have to have the balls to make your hero feel like one while still retaining confidence in your own leadership.
Like a good parent, your first responsibility is to contain your child within a world that makes him feel safe and secure. You must have the empathy to get inside his head and understand his fears and insecurities.
You have to know him better than he knows himself and give him the conditions he needs to flourish. That doesn't mean you let him walk all over you, it just means you're stronger than he is. Psychological studies of successful managers of corporations have found that they share one quality: emotional intelligence.
They are people managers who know how to inspire performance. Mick McCarthy betrayed his immaturity when he said that his finest player was having "personal problems", as if this was an aberration.
Of course Roy Keane was having personal problems. The rest of the team are likely to be having personal problems too. Being a high achiever with the hopes of a nation riding on your performance, is a very personal problem.
You struggle with your confidence night and day. Stress, anxiety and injury, as Keane has admitted , is part of what you are paid for. Likewise, those who manage stars like Keane are paid to deal with their performer's stress, anxiety and injury.
McCarthy's passion and commitment shouldn't be to bolster his own ego, it should be to nurture each of his players as individuals. It is McCarthy's job to ensure that personal problems don't get in the way of success. McCarthy may justify sending Roy Keane home as being beneficial for "the team", but without its star player to galvanise them, there is no team.
A group of people can function under the control of a leader, but good leaders know that to win, rather than merely function, you need errant geniuses who do the unexpected. Individuals like Keane are different than you and me. We in Ireland hate genius. When the heads of the poppies grow too high, we mow them down.
We despise achievement and accomplishment. The only way an Irishman can get recognition is if he succeeds abroad and becomes "British" or "American".
When he comes home, he had better be careful. We won't stand for any of that "personal" nonsense. Our pride in the Irish team was one way we were breaking through these insecurities to celebrate ourselves.
We may slag Bono with his aspirations for global healing, but Roy Keane - who quietly gave away a substantial proportion of his money to charity - was a man of the people. If only Bertie could go in and sort it out. We don't need Bertie as Taoiseach as much as we need him to be manager of the Irish team.
As a consensus man, Bertie wouldn't have let this happen. He would have stayed awake for 36 hours talking to all sides before he let it things deteriorate into a victory of one ego over another. Bertie wouldn't have been into the blame-game.
He would have risen above the petty squabbles about facilities, food and football and seen the bigger picture. He would never have sent Roy Keane home. If Roy Keane had chosen to resign, on the other hand. . . But that's not the point. Our hero has been sent home. Our manager has betrayed us. We are bereft.
Medb Ruane is on leave