Cork fans are well used to painting the town red for their sporting heroes, but it's not every day an international trophy is paraded through the city streets. So little wonder that they turned out in force last night to welcome home the victorious Munster rugby team.
Gardaí estimated that upwards of 30,000 fans jammed the junction of the South Mall and Parnell Place to see Clare man Anthony Foley lift the Heineken European Cup aloft after the team's thrilling 23-19 victory over Biarritz on Saturday.
Corkonians are unabashedly chauvinist but there was no mistaking the warmth of the welcome extended to their Tipperary, Limerick and Clare brethren on the victorious side with lion-hearted Limerick man Paul O'Connell getting a particularly raucous welcome.
They even forgave flanker Alan Quinlan, from Tipperary town, for threatening to sing the Tipp anthem Slievenamon on the banks of the Lee such was the jubilation and delight at seeing the European Cup in Cork.
Not surprisingly though, some of the loudest cheers were reserved for Cork's own, try scorer Peter Stringer, outhalf Ronan O'Gara, second rows Donnacha O'Callaghan and Mick O'Driscoll and injured hooker Frankie Sheehan, who missed out on the action on Saturday.
Unfortunately, as with the Cork hurlers' homecoming last year, the amplification for last night's event was, to quote one fan, "bloody brutal" and much of what the players had to say in response to MC Michael Corcoran of RTÉ was lost on the sweet night air.
What was clear, in spite of the muffled inadequate amplification, was the relief and delight of the players and the incredible debt they feel to the fans who have followed them all over Europe during the past decade or so in search of the European Cup.
Donnacha O'Callaghan admitted that the reception in Limerick was tremendous but it wasn't until he came back to Cork that it really began to sink in, a feeling echoed by his fellow towering lock, Mick O'Driscoll, who came on for Paul O'Connell near the end of the match.
But the last word went to the last man to play the ball on Saturday, hero scrum half Peter Stringer : "To see so many people here in Cork tonight means so much and as Anthony Foley said in Limerick - hopefully this is just the start, not the end, of our journey in this competition."
