On O'Connell Street, Limerick, yesterday, the street traders were displaying the county's colours among their flags, dolls and head bands, exchanging banter with shoppers and marvelling at the black market price for Munster Final tickets.
Stand tickets were selling for £400 in one city pub, GAA officials had their phones off the hook and the hustling continued in the clubs for the privilege of being one of 43,500 people to gain access to Cork's Pairc Ui Chaoimh.
Club players were only getting one ticket each in many cases. "Scarce as hen's teeth", was one flag seller's comment on ticket availability and nobody was believing his sales pitch: "You might get a ticket wrapped up in those flags, you never know."
"There is great hype, massive. It is like an all-Ireland," he said.
Limerick selector Canon Willie Fitzmaurice said that ticket pressure had been severe on players, selectors and club officials. "Big sports events attract greater hype than before. Everybody is in a position to travel. They have the means and the transport."
The pressure is less intense at nearby Fota Island, where entry to the Murphy's Irish Open is free to children under 10 and old age pensioners. Day tickets cost £25. The organisers are expecting more than 100,000 spectators over the four days of the event.
Interest will also be focused on the Curragh's Budweiser Irish Derby tomorrow, which will be as much a fashion outing as a day at the races.
About 30,000 people are expected to attend and corporate tickets, which were selling for between £275 and £305, are gone.
While Galileo and Golan will battle it out in the big race, off track the theme for the fashion award, £3,500 worth of Arnott's vouchers, is "red, white and true". "The theme of the competition is if you have personal style and you want to have a bit of fun and want to wear funky fashion to the derby, you are as likely to win as somebody taking a mink and emeralds," Mr Eddie Shanahan, general marketing manager of Arnott's, said.
The President, Mrs McAleese, will be a guest of the Turf Club, and more than 1,000 Anheuser-Busch guests, including the Tanaiste, Ms Harney, and the Minister for Finance, Mr McCreevy, will be entertained later in the evening by Vonda Shepherd, who sings the title song on the TV series Ally McBeal.