A religious icon would scarcely have elicited more veneration than the Sam Maguire last night when, like the medieval Holy Grail, it arrived back to Kerry for a record 34th time.
The first tantalising glimpse of the silver trophy was when it was offered temptingly towards the adoring crowd through the train window at Casement railway station in Tralee. The sight of it brought ecstatic cheers from up to 4,000 fans.
It took an hour for an open-top bus carrying the trophy and the team to reach the stage in front of the Ashe Memorial Hall in the heart of Tralee, as up to 15,000 green and gold jerseyed supporters thronged Boherbee and Castle and Denny streets.
A ritual stop was made outside the Austin Stack stadium and the heart of the capital of the Kingdom before the team arrived onstage on Denny Street, where the Sam Maguire was lifted by mayor of Kerry Ted Fitzgerald and mayor of Tralee Norma Foley.
Winning and losing was like "the difference between night and day", and this year was a special win because of the turmoil of the season, manager Jack O'Connor told the crowd.
Local hero Kieran Donaghy was introduced by his new name, "Star", to the wild delight of fans.
"There was a small bit of pressure" going into the game, he said with tremendous understatement, his voice drowned out by cheers.
Meanwhile, plans for an official homecoming ceremony for the Mayo team were dropped partly because of the bad weather, but also out of consideration for the disappointed players.
Mayo's GAA county board chairman James Waldron defended the decision and told The Irish Times that "the weather was too bad" anyway.
Mr Waldron said the players were "very down" and very upset, "naturally enough". Some of the players were working in Dublin and it was felt that it made "no sense" to be travelling home and then back again for work on Tuesday.
"We had a very good year, and we will pick ourselves up again," Mr Waldron said.
An informal dinner for those players who did head west was held last night at the Welcome Inn, Castlebar.