Dublin's St Patrick's Festival came to a close yesterday with a day-long outdoor circus and carnival on Merrion Square.
An array of singers, dancers, clowns and incarnate sausages gathered for the Denny Big Day Out, an elaborate bookend to the capital's five-day festival.
Two French tourists came upon the event by accident. "C'est quoi, ça?" one woman asked her friend. In front of them, the Liverpudlian percussion group Urban Strawberry Lunch filled the air with the unmistakable rhythmic thwacks of wooden sticks striking plastic barrels, gas canisters and tin cans, while the house alarms behind them wailed in protest. "Je sais pas," her friend replied. "Je sais pas."
At the fairground to the west and south of the square children swung, spun, bounced and leapt, looking content in that distressed way of theirs, while parents, happy to have the children flung around in the air if only for a few minutes, warmed up by the hotdog stand and the brass band assembled to the east.
The cultural chameleon that is the St Patrick's Festival kept up its relentless internationalism with unbridled vim.
At the "cultural stage" Chinese singers and African bands vied with traditional Mongolian dancers "Diane" and "Emma" for the gaze of the shivering mass.
"Hello, Irish people," one singer yelled, but as with the performers, so too the assembled crowd: most were tourists, the mellifluous tones of French, Italian and Spanish dominating all others.
Lest anyone forget why they were here, though, there was the official merchandise stand to remind them. The diminishing stock spoke of a brisk trade in "shamrock masks" (€5) and "bishop's hats" (€9), each tastefully adorned with bright green beards for him and her.
A spokeswoman for the festival said the organisers were "absolutely delighted".
"The atmosphere here today is fantastic. There's a real carnival atmosphere, and they're nearly all activities that people can take part in.
"Obviously the weather wasn't ideal for the parade on Friday, but it [the turnout] really showed how much people love the parade."