The Submarine Bar in Crumlin isn't really a bar at all - it is a theatre of dreams where it feels only right and proper to expect the unexpected.
The big screen hangs high on a stage decked out with footlights. There are stalls, and an upper level that serves as the dress circle. There is the smell of green face-paint and the roar of the crowd.
On either side of the stage are grand boxes that wouldn't look out of place in the Gaiety. In the boxes, girls with shiny green wigs stockpile bottles of beer. A jubilee image of the Queen of England's face flashes up on the screen. Nobody boos. Not yet. That comes later.
Those familiar theatrical symbols, the happy and sad masks, look down over it all. Expectancy was tinged with sadness when the spectacle began, but by the time the curtain fell at the bar on Saturday morning, we were delirious. Standing ovations have never been so sweet.
The audience had queued outside from 6 a.m., many coming straight from all-night drinking sessions.
The Submarine had intended to serve alcohol-free champagne, but were granted an early licence just the day before. The fans wore hats with orange hair attached, hats with viking horns, hats that flashed in the dark.
They weren't taking their hats off to Mick McCarthy though. When the Irish manager appeared on the screen, there were angry boos from a crowd still smarting from the loss of their leading man.
"I know I shouldn't go on about it, but it is very hard not to. It just doesn't feel the same in here without Roy" said Mark Condon from Crumlin, pointing to his heart. Three forlorn glasses of green champagne and the remains of a cooked breakfast sat on the table in front of him. "My nerves are shot," said a woman chain-smoking beside him. "This is the best diet, I am losing pounds in sweat".
Around us, the thousand fans began to chant, banging inflatable hammers, raising inflatable green fists as the first act got started. Cheers for the team, boos for the Cameroon manager, more boos for our own manager. And then agony. The slick Cameroon performance producing a goal.
The cheers more half-hearted now. Time for the interval, time for another pint of beer to wash down the breakfast.
But Paul Ramsay from Greenhills in Dublin had a plan. With an Irish flag around his shoulders and a Mexican hat on his head, he travelled the length of the entire bar urging people to get behind the team.
"If you hear a chant go for it, I am telling everyone. You haven't been supporting them as much as you should, let's really go for it now," he said.
When the action commenced the cheers were noticeably louder, and Paul looked happier. A few minutes later he was euphoric as Matt Holland scored. The sight of Mick McCarthy on the sidelines elicited deafening cheers from the crying, hugging, stamping crowd, the bitter jeers of the first half forgotten.
Afterwards they danced around tables, calling Eamon Dunphy lots of words that need asterisks. Pure theatre. And it's only just begun.