They gathered by the thousand beside the lake after the final whistle. Fermanagh had won, Tyrone were defeated. Could you believe it? The balmy air provided the third minor miracle of the afternoon.
The main event of the Celtic Fusion music festival had got off to a slow start courtesy of the Croke Park double header. Some emerged unbelieving from dimmed television rooms. Others found their spot on the grass, still dizzy from a late-night pub session.
They ranged from the breastfed to the motorised infirm, from young parents with kids to older couples with thankfully absent teenagers. One boy wore a Fermanagh shirt, only the second spotted east of the Bann. Near the turreted shadows of the castle a game of talentless football had broken out. Judging by the shirts Down appeared to be playing Portugal - but in what code it was hard to tell.
On stage Finlay MacDonald and his band revved up a rhythmic, pounding set you could not ignore. This will never be background music at airports. Think of cliched Hogmanay Scottish pipe music - then think again.
Rugs were spread, picnics unpacked, drink poured. Kids ran to the face-painting or watched acrobats or balloons twisted into giraffes and poodles. It was Lisdoonvarna minus the muck, or Slane without the sex, though there was some unmarried snogging.
Eleanor McEvoy sang of love lost and broken hearts as only a woman can. Her heart was low, her haaart was soooo low . . . The first Irish traditional singer to get a good CD review in a British porn magazine, she told us. After the Croker results, we'd have believed anything.
Lunasa were next. Their line-up covered the four provinces including a poor unfortunate from Armagh whose head hung low.
Don McLean then took to the stage and announced in a classic American twang that he was the "fusion" part of the festival. A more marked mood swing was hard to imagine. A mile or so to the south the dark Mournes glowered black in the twilight as he plucked out his version of the song he helped globalise. He appeared genuinely grateful. It is, after all, our song. The middle-aged stood and swayed and sang the songs of their era. And on that starry starry night it was, for a while, 1972 all over again.