Sorry to be a party pooper but this could be the time to Czech on our lost baggage..

EUPHORIA didn’t just sweep across Budapest; it shook the foundations of Irish football and rolled home through every pub, café, bar and housing estate in the country.

- GARRY DOYLE

You could feel it deep in the gut, like a sensation people thought theyd forgotten.

Ireland beat Hungary.

Ireland beat Portugal.

Two nights, two wins, and a country rediscovered a part of itself it feared had gone missing.

Troy Parrott scored five in two games — five - and a young man stepping through a doorway into stardom as if it had been left open just for him.

Caoimhín Kelleher was immense, the great wall that Portugal — Cristiano Ronaldo and all — could not breach.

Seamus Coleman, at 37, turned back the clock and played with the clarity and defiance of a man who refuses to let time tell him when to stop.

Ryan Manning came off the bench and stepped straight into folklore.

Nathan Collins captained as if the armband had always belonged to him.

Finn Azaz came of age in front of our eyes.

And the fans... seriously, the fans.

The images from the Puskas Arena will live for decades.

People in green lifting their arms in disbelief.

Strangers hugging. Grown men crying.

Children screaming names they'll still remember at 80.

Those scenes, once uploaded, bounced around social media like a defibrillator to the national spirit.

Then came the clips from home — bars erupting, streets buzzing, voices cracking.

It wasn't just celebration. It was catharsis.