Summer lives on as Mayo and Kerry promise another epic

The fun starts early. The motorways up from the west are busy — so busy that by the time the toll-booths near Enfield are hit, the cars are queuing back five and six deep even though it’s not even close to noon.

And the air at the toll-booths is pure giddy. Mayo fans are blowing their horns for the fun of it. Tourists and day-trippers and others are joining in with them. People are just sitting in their cars, waiting their turn, blowing their horns and laughing their heads off.

On up the road and there are kids pushed up against the back window of buses, looking for lads to wave at them. A fella in a black Jetta goes by. You wouldn’t have thought a car with an 02 registration would get up to the speed it does as it canters past. Especially with the crowd that is in the car. All it is short is somebody sitting on the roof.