Opening Ceremony/Frank McNally: With a ban on all symbols of partisanship, including national flags, the colour was as pure as the noise.
Croke Park has witnessed some strange and wonderful things down the years, from the skills of D.J. Carey (wonderful) to the hairstyles of the great Dublin and Kerry teams of the 1970s (strange). But nothing in the stadium's long history quite compares with the events of last Saturday night.
The opening ceremony of the Special Olympics World Summer Games had many of the elements of an All-Ireland final: colour, noise, parades, a large man singing. There the comparisons ended. Apart from a few boos aimed at Bertie Ahern, the clamour created by the supporters was one of unadulterated encouragement for everybody on the pitch.
And with a ban on all symbols of partisanship, including national flags, the colour was as pure as the noise.
This was colour for colour's sake. Much of it courtesy of the prisoners of nearby Mountjoy jail, who created 70,000 flags, one for everyone in the audience , in shades never seen at Croke Park. Viewed from the Hogan Stand, the Cusack was a psychedelic experience of pinks and purples, yellows and greens. The fans waved them for the delegations from Argentina, from Chad, from Kazakhstan; and they were still waving when Team Zimbabwe finally trooped into the stadium. The term "flagging enthusiasm" took on a new meaning on Saturday evening.
For Croke Park itself, it was a global unveiling. Accompanying the US delegation in a version of the Pope-mobile, maybe even Mohammad Ali marvelled at the sight. The old shed-like stands gone, replaced by towering, tiered structures, with a jammy corporate layer in the middle like the filling in a sponge cake, he must have wondered if this really was the same place he fought Al Blue Lewis three decades ago. Ali himself is much changed since, but even with a moustache, he's still more recognisable than the new Croker.
While the applause for all the parading teams was never less than generous, there was a special welcome for the small contingent from Iraq, which will have encouraged them during the nervous moments when the vast American force poured in, surrounding all the other teams. There was also a huge cheer for Great Britain - another first for GAA headquarters. And the SARS-affected countries got warm welcomes too, especially China, escorted in by Ireland's ambassador to the Far East, Roy Keane.
The Manchester United man's other job on the night was to accompany Special Olympian Catriona Ryan as she took the Games oath on-stage. No stranger to swearing oaths himself, Roy only had to stand alongside her. Later, however, as he sat with the Taoiseach in the stand, his experience may have been more valuable.
Bertie Ahern is used to feeling at home in Croke Park, but this was not a GAA fixture, and for once he found himself playing away. The boos that greeted his introduction may have been a verdict on the gap between official rhetoric on disability and the reality, or just on the sense that this was a political intrusion in a politics-free zone. Either way, Roy will have been able to comfort him on the vagaries of public adulation.
Apart from the booing incident, the most pointed comments of the night were in Games founder Eunice Kennedy Shriver's passionate assertion of the rights of the intellectually disabled. Mostly, however, the event was just a big party, and an excuse for Ireland to show off its well-worn but still serviceable assets, from Pierce Brosnan to the Corrs.
The Riverdance troupe weighed in with a world record performance of the famous party piece, 100 pairs of thighs flailing in unison in a line the width of Croke Park.
A 500-strong choir delivered the Games anthem with a fervour that raised goosebumps. And U2 turned a short set into an extended introduction for the night's star speaker, Nelson Mandela.
As darkness fell and the colours on the flags faded, flame and flashing lights took over. In a dramatic twist, the Olympic Torch was preceded into the stadium by a long line of motorcyclists from the Garda and Police Service of Northern Ireland, whose flashing blue lamps took up the colour theme so vividly set by the prisoners. Finally, the torch-lighting ceremony sparked a Mexican wave of fire on the roofs of the Cusack and Hogan stands.
Yes, it was like nothing Croke Park had ever seen, and Colin Farrell summed it up best.
On a night when everyone was on his best behaviour, the Hollywood heart-throb exercised heroic self-control during a stage interview, avoiding the use of even a single rude word.
Instead, he sounded like a 1960s flower child: "It's beautiful, man."