Hush. Everywhere the old familiar sounds of credit union managers bracing themselves, families quietly lamenting the loss of next year's summer holidays and publicans filling out planning applications. The old craziness is back, a familiar fever sweeping the nation faster than foot-and-mouth disease. The World Cup finals. Yes that's right, sing it now. Wherever they'll be, we'll be. Were going to Japan/South Koree-ah.
After a significant gap Ireland arrived back at the threshold of the promised land on Saturday with a performance of consummate courage and passion in Lansdowne Road.
Just like the old days, only better, said Niall Quinn, of Saturday's craziness. As the only survivor from Ireland's first great adventure, to the 1988 European Championships, he is perhaps the best judge of these things. It was backs to the wall but the noise, the passion, made it one of those afternoons you never forget.
Thrown in for a make or break moment against a Dutch side of immaculate sophistication and some accomplishment it was expected that we would emerge looking like novice bodhran players in the company of professional jazz improvisationists.
The single goal victory which Ireland carved out grows all the more remarkable the more you consider it. Missing five first-choice players and forced to field several reserve club players, then having a man sent off, the Irish set the bar pretty high for themselves. Yet at the end it was the professorial Dutchmen who were lurching about the place like a Sunday morning pub team.
It was a famous win achieved by an honest group of players, said Irish manager Mick McCarthy, as he struggled to find the words to match the sense of occasion. As it happened there were no words or scarcely a precedent. The key moments in Ireland's prior qualifications to the big time have always come on foreign fields. On Saturday this corner of Dublin 4 shook with excitement.
With one home game left to play, Ireland's win seems likely to leave them second in Group Two, level on points with Portugal who will in all likelihood have a superior goal difference. If that is the case Ireland will play off in November against the third placed team in the Asian qualification series. That could be anyone from the People's Republic of China to Uzbekistan - but Ireland will enter as hot favourites.