The barmaid was ripe and possessed that beautiful Cork trait of saying ‘so’ after every sentence. We asked a fellow at the bar if he would take a photo of us outside the pub, but he blankly refused due to his current midlife crisis and the dependence of Ireland’s success upon him not missing a millisecond of the match.

While Spratt’s was tragically uneventful, the next few hours would plunge us into the true horrors of the Irish back-road. Things were going well until we hit Drumcollogher and made the mistake of actually following the rusty sign posts. Within minutes, the road had disintegrated into one of those pock-marked lanes with a grass Mohawk, where there is no trace of civilisation and the radio goes dead. With Brian and Boris arguing over who was more wrong, we decided to stop and ask for directions. Of course, the homestead we stopped at had been taken over by its animals in some Orwellian farm revolution and we left hurriedly amid the cacophony of dog barking and cow noises. We did eventually find some humans living in a half-built house who redirected us back onto normal roads and we headed towards Abbeyfeale and the border with Kerry.