It is a strange sight, this white passion. When Kildare visit Croke Park, it's as if great big bags of salt are poured through the stands. On Saturday, the city fans looked corralled on the Hill, a defiant blue minority, vivid against the whiteness, raucous in the beauty of the first half hour. Then, after the second half exploded unbelievably into life, they fell stunned into a silence that endured for the rest of the evening.
By 4.45, the white folk were dancing about in the stands. There is a raw excitement about those who follow this topsy-turvy Kildare adventure. They live, for better or for worse, on their emotions and don't care who sees them.
"I think that's a classic," says Mick O'Dwyer, after retreating to the dressingroom having survived the back claps. "That's the way to play football, not kicking the ball up into the air the way some fellas talk about. If the die-hards out there think that's bad football, I don't know what they want. It was an outstanding performance from the team and the whole 15 of them played right to the end.
"This team has character. We were two goals down as well to Offaly, if you remember and came back and won. I mean, we have gone down in games and this Kildare team is not typical of Kildare teams of the past. They have fire in their bellies and the will to win."
In this vein he gushes, his fervour undimmed despite all the great days he has masterminded before. There is a sense though that this was the hour - or close to it - that has kept him returning to Newbridge autumn after autumn. This, even more so than 1998, was vindication for the time he has invested. He will long hold it dear.
"I would rate this as good as any occasion I had with Kerry," he stresses. "It must stand out with any of them. It was outstanding."
And scarcely logical. Over the break, with Dublin six points up and singing, the murmur was that some sort of uprising from Kildare could be guaranteed. The only doubt was as to whether it would be too muted. There had been, after all, a flatness to their play in the first half. No one could have envisaged the madness that ensued, the wonderful, implausible two goal rush, in 100 seconds.
It was hard not to feel for Tom Carr. His team etched out his vision in the first half and then let it all go up in smoke in seconds. And there was nothing he could do about it.
"Well, there is no explaining it," he said afterwards, his child in his arms, ready to walk out of Croke Park for the last time this summer anyway.
"I mean, two goals in a minute and 40 seconds and then one point in the second half says it all. It is difficult to understand as well as explain. We were well in control at half-time, we had them played off the pitch virtually and were scoring at will. Then the two goals just shook us. That was it. The game just changed in one minute."
Those goals, that brief implosion, will haunt Dublin for a long time. In the first 35 minutes, they gave the Hill more reason to believe than for a long time. "I think the first-half display was as good as we've ever seen from Dublin. Eleven points, most of them from play, it was very fluent stuff. I think we were cutting their defence apart any time we went forward, but 35 minutes is not enough at this level."
They would have talked about the white tide they would meet in the second half, warned themselves against it, but how do you legislate against freak spells? Even the Kildare architects remembered the glorious seconds fuzzily.
"Just remember this man here (Padraig Brennan) went through and gave about four or five dummies and flicked it over someone's head to me," offered Dermot Earley. "I saw Davy (Byrne) coming out and as I kicked, it went away from me and that's how I kept it low."
"It all happened so fast," remembered Tadhg Fennin, who thumped home the second goal when the world was still dissecting details of the first. "Willie McCreery made a run inside, he flicked it over to Brian Murphy, he had a chance to goal himself but he laid it off to me and, thank God, it went in. I couldn't believe it and I don't think they ever recovered."
Nor did they even come close. Dublin were shadows in the second half, solid ground pulled from under their feet. The scores were balanced for a long time, but it was clear the home team were tumbling through a black hole. At one point, Carr and his selectors were to be seen on their knees, as if praying for some sort of reprieve. They threw in men, made switches, but Dublin were flatlining.
If that was Carr's last day on the line, then he deserved better.
"I don't know," he said of his future. "I'm not sure we have anything left to offer. We've put a huge amount in this last three years. I think that's well known at this stage We have scoured the county to build this team and we certainly couldn't see ourselves losing today. As for me. I'm still getting over it myself at the minute."
The healing time will be lonesome, but Dublin will play again. Kildare, that whiteness, is again the story of the summer. Glen Ryan stood for a while in the middle of his team-mates, gazing through the chaos.
"That," he announced, "was dreamwork stuff."
