The lion, not the dragon, was dancing at the entrance to Dame Lane. His head went round and round, roaring silently. Scary monsters were all around. Drums were beating. The party was underway.
Red lanterns swung overhead. The wok was steaming under the tarpaulin at the corner, courtesy of the Amoy Chinese New Year celebrations.
It is the Year of the Horse.
The dancing lion turned out to be William Luk from Hong Kong, who works in Dublin as a chef. Thomas Tang, also a chef but based in Cork, was helping with crowd control. One young couple, Ou Xue Hong and Lin Rong, were wide-eyed tourists, taking in the fire-breathing, the dancing dragon, the martial arts and t'ai chi displays.
Kohei Fukuo (16), from Saitama,near Tokyo, was taking a break from studying English at Sutton High School in Dublin. Andrew Phang, a Malaysian who owns Andrew's Chinese Restaurant in Bray, was with his wife, Ansama Phang, and their friends. Travel agent Emi Kuwahara, from Japan, who has been working in Dublin for three years, and her friend, Anna Bacciletti, from Milan, sat with Hui Zhang from north China and her boyfriend, Dan Zhao.
Patricia O'Shea, from Buenos Aires, was with her fiancé, Tom Rixton, a record producer and sound engineer. Getting engaged was very romantic, she said. He had been peeling potatoes at the time, she added, starry-eyed at the memory.
But the most romantic moment of the month award must go to the man who went down on one knee in front of his girlfriend as they were going over the Ha'penny Bridge one Friday night recently. We'll probably never know his identity. He held a box with a sparkling solitaire out to his girlfriend, saying simply, "Marry me". No one stopped to listen to her answer, not even this reporter, who happened to be passing by, but the couple stood together for a long time, looking into each other's eyes.
Did she say yes? Only St Valentine could say.