Sideline Cut: Call it sunstroke, but I do not recognise this country any more. The golden orb is changing us. Just as Charlie McCreevy prophesied, we are turning into a nation of Pinkos.

It is not rain we need now but a massive bottle of factor 30 squeegeed across the entire country. A godly hand must materialise from the clear blue skies above and liberally dispense the cooling protective balm, dousing the burnt midlands and broiling coastlines. For we need protection from ourselves.

Now we know why the sun chooses to never shine upon Ireland. It is because it is too damn afraid of the havoc it reaps. The sun is terrified of us.

The Irish bring a whole new meaning to the term sun sports. The sun makes us strange and now that we are in the midst of what we are proudly declaring to be our very own heat wave, the strangeness is general all over Ireland.

Traditionally, any three consecutive summer days without a downpour when the temperature manages to huff and puff into the mid-teens qualified as a heat wave here. In those circumstances, under instruction from the good people of Met Éireann, we would gladly go through the pretence of knowing how to live up the summer as much as any of our European brethren.

Out would come the frocks and the short-sleeved shirts. DIY stores would happily report record sales in Bar-B-Qs, with four walking off the shelves in Mullingar alone. We would don ludicrously flashy shades with the pathological zeal of the cast of Men In Black.

The bravest of us would walk gingerly towards the mighty Atlantic, nimbly sidestepping the jellyfish and particles of ice as we partook or our summer dip. Japanese tourists would take photographs of us in unabashed wonder as we disappeared into the merciless foam only to arise again revitalised and quite blue.

"Ah, it's lovely," we would assure one another through chattering lips.

"It's a wee bit cold when you get in but after a while it's lovely." Translation: don't know about you but I have gone completely f***ing numb.

A good day at the beach was one you managed to complete without getting caught in a shower of rain. And when Gerry would appear after the nine o'clock News and announce, with a sad lilt in his voice, that summer was officially over, we would quietly reflect that, on balance, it hadn't been a great one. Not a classic by any means. Just those few days in May really.

And they weren't fantastic. Just that hour on the Wednesday afternoon when you think about it. And then with relief, almost, we would embrace the return of our unique and faithful season, drizzle.

So you will understand if I find the sights and sounds that currently dominate our green island more than a little disconcerting. Men of a certain age, for instance, now feel obliged to wander around on their daily business sans chemise. There is an entire army of such creatures, dressed in sensible shoes, Farah trousers and then nothing.

It is a weird mixture of brazenness and prudery. No matter what state the torso, off comes the shirt but the Irish male leg stays coyly under wraps.

Also, we have taken to the siesta as to the manor born. On park benches, in cars, in supermarket queues, the dozing off in the warmth has been contagious. Picnics are being successfully planned and executed. We have learned that snorkelling is not a village in the Kerry Gaeltacht. There are reports of Irish people floating in the Atlantic for entire minutes without even the slightest hint of hypothermia. The Irish sunset, for decades considered the endangered species of international skylines, has been out in force.

As for our games, they, too, are becoming unrecognisable. Last Saturday evening's All-Ireland football quarter-final replay was supposed to be played in Castlebar but before the teams came on the field, it looked and felt and smelled like a baseball gathering in Havana. It was truly glorious.

And the scenes from Croke Park on the Sunday were even more so, with the red of Cork and Wexford's purple combining to create a violently rich burst of colour. It is apparent the great game is supposed to be played in equatorial temperatures, but still, you wonder if our psyche could take it.

Already, the heat has led to a number of troubling revelations, none more so than Larry Murphy's, who admitted he was bothered by the heat as "I don't have too many solar panels on my head and the old thatch is a bit light and the sun is beaming down".

Betting companies branding hurls is one thing but full forwards tinkering with solar technology in the middle of important championship games is quite another. Just how many solar panels does Larry have on his noggin? I am sure there are many purists out there who would argue that one is too many. Do they contribute to the fact that Larry remains the fittest and youngest-looking of all the Wexford hurlers even though he started playing in the era just before the Rackards? Would they not be dangerous in the event of another thunder-and-lightning final? The GAC had best get its act together on the whole issue of solar panels before it has an epidemic on its hands. It would be well advised also to deliver warnings on the best way to deal with hurling in the sun.

Henry Shefflin, Peter Barry, Eamon Corcoran: these are all fair lads. They went to bed happily dreaming of another championship in the lush fresh fields of Ireland and awoke to find they would be playing in hottest Cuba. The black and amber of Kilkenny demands a pale limb to set it off. Whatever about the rest of us, the nation's hurlers cannot be allowed to lapse into a general state of pinkness.

If there is to be a respite from the heat this weekend, perhaps it will be as well. 120,000 of us will show up in Croke Park after a fortnight of slow baking under the glories of the fiery god. 120,000 pairs of shades, 120,000 shades of pink and as many stories about the unimagined possibilities of living in an Ireland that is actually sunny.

The fear is we get too used to it. Weeks like this can but be visited upon us once every decade. We are simply too excitable, too eager, when presented with sunshine. It is time to take stock. Give us some normality.

Give us 30 men on a field on a summer's day cool enough to wear your coat. Give us the threat but the not the reality of rain. Give us John Carroll mixing thunder and grace, give us a single moment from DJ. Give us a sermon from Ger. Give us a Celtic day we recognise.

These salad days of summer are all very well but a fresh nip of wind and a hearty Sunday roast dinner might be timely before we forget ourselves entirely. Before this country goes to the dogs altogether.