With the city-centre streets given over to pedestrians, crowds anxious for the best view of Saturday night's Skyfest trickled towards the quays from about 8 p.m. Gardai at crush barriers explained how to navigate the diversions to get a good look at the fireworks.
Hawkers cheekily touted green hats emblazoned with shamrocks and flags, leftovers from the original St Patrick's weekend. Judging from the numbers wearing them, they were doing steady business, as were those selling the multi-coloured tinsel-horned headbands and the flashing-light zogabongs. So there was plenty of festive spirit despite the ersatz feeling about the event.
The crowd's good spirits meant there was no trouble despite the estimate of more than half a million people thronging the area from O'Connell Street and Aston Quay to Butt Bridge and Sir John Rogerson's Quay.
Once positioned, families perched on kerbs while they waited for darkness to fall and the sky to light up. Many had spent all day in the city centre and toddlers with painted faces were beginning to wilt.
Ten o'clock approached and the sky was still and silent. Then, in a sudden explosion, the sky burst into colour, raising giggling screams from the crowd, caught unawares in the end.
Disappointingly for anyone without a radio or personal stereo, the specially commissioned soundtrack, to which the fireworks were impeccably choreographed, was not audible. So, for most of the people around this reporter, half the event's effect was lost.
However, the remaining half was far from prosaic.
A wave of comets darted along the firing line from the Custom House to the Point Depot. Computer-timed rapid-fire ignition mechanisms unleashed a cacophanous display from the two-kilometre firing zone, one of the longest in Europe. The 18 tonnes of explosives produced a pyrotechnic rippling rainbow, a dance of silver comets, and the signature Syd Howard International effect, the "Matrix".
Millions of tiny silver tadpoles squiggled across the sky and fizzled out. Red, green and silver vied for dominance. The rapid-fire ignition produced an effect like a downpour of rain. The crowd cheered and screamed at the bigger eruptions, which made the bridges seem to shudder.
The sky above the IFSC, thick with smoke from the explosions, trembled and shimmered as the screeching detonations continued. Then, with a trickle of bangs, it was all over 20 minutes after it had begun. The crowd applauded warmly, but were quick to move off in the chill May night so that jaded toddlers could be carried home.