Stories of grown men swapping land, farm animals and even holidays abroad for the golden passes to the All-Ireland final were rife in coffee shops and bars from Ballybunion to Ballybofey.
It’s eleven years since Donegal appeared in a senior football final and the county last won in 2012.
But Kerry will be very slow to relinquish any designs on Sam Maguire, having last lifted the trophy in 2022 and remain all-time record-holders.
The two sides met in 2014 and there’s massive demand for tickets from the north to the south of the country.
A ticket allocation of a little more than 13,000 was never going to come even close to satisfying the demand of GAA-mad county Donegal.
A decade plus another year without a triumphant homecoming to The Diamond in Donegal Town has been too long for most to take.
Cue the return of manager Jim McGuinness last year and the ramping up of expectations of every man, woman and child who has ever hung a Donegal flag from their sitting room window or uttered the name of Michael Murphy.
The best of times: Murphy and Jim McGuinness celebrating after winning the All-Ireland in 2012. Photograph: Dara Mac Donaill/The Irish Times
After falling at the penultimate hurdle against Galway last year, expectations of the messiah and his men are even higher.
In their first capture of Sam Maguire back in 1992, flocks of painted sheep were a novelty matched only by the respraying of cars in gold and green in the build-up to the county’s shock defeat of a fancied Dublin side.
This time around it’s the abundance of colour which has captured the imagination with every corner, lamppost and gable wall in most towns and villages getting a touch.
Street vendors at makeshift stalls dealing in hats, flags and headbands have popped up in most larger towns across the county this week.
Not surprisingly, Glenties, the hometown of manager Jim McGuinness, claims the award for best decorated with life-size cardboard cut-outs of the team battling for space with giant good luck placards along the town’s main street.
Meanwhile, in Killarney locals were dressing in green and gold all weekend, including those at the MACademy performing arts school where groups of four to 16 year olds each picked their heroes and stressed that ‘Kerry is on fire’.
Colour had been slow to go up in the tourist town, but by Friday it more than matched Tralee.
Traditionally, it is Killarney volunteers who put up the street bunting, but health and safety rules from working at heights, the chamber of commerce and tourism said in a statement.
Health and safety rules prevented volunteers from putting up bunting File photograph: Bryan O Brien / The Irish Times
But Killarney Vintners combined with the local chamber of commerce and hired contractors to bedeck the town with bunting.
Tralee meanwhile, from the Austin Stacks to the Kerins O’Rahillys is decked in the green and gold.
Just like 2014, both teams in this year’s All-Ireland have the same colours.
A ‘raid’ by supporters saw the Donegal flags planted at the iconic GAA sites Dr Croke’s in Killarney.
Monday’s lark included an overnight drive from Donegal as far as the Kerry county GAA centre of excellence in Currans where further flags were placed.
‘The Kingdom’s Green and Gold’ by Garry McMahon has been belting out from Flathery’s Pub in Dingle, all week and along all three peninsulas. Son of ‘The Master’ the writer Bryan McMahon, the late Garry, was a keen hurler and footballer in his youth, and is widely felt to have penned the greatest of Kerry anthems.
Still everyone will be hoping it’s a ‘victory’ this weekend, and not ‘a salute to the gallant foe to pack the bags and go’, as the song suggests.
The shrines of Kerry football have all been visited, not least the statue of the great Paidi O’Shea, footballer and manager in Ventry; and the great Mikey Sheehy has been pictured with his son, now a county councillor on Tralee’s Rock Street.
Back in up Buncrana, a huge banner on the corner of the An Tuath Nua bar on main street cheekily proclaims ‘Donegal for Sam, Kerry for butter.’
‘Donegal for Sam, Kerry for butter’ sign on roadside
Once drab Garda stations have also been decorated in support of Donegal goalkeeper Shaun Patton, a community Garda based out of Buncrana.
Spare a thought for Sergeant Maurice Doyle, a GAA loving Kerryman who will have a lot to listen to in Letterkenny Garda Station if Donegal triumph.
Those left behind when Jim’s cavalcade leaves for the capital can still soak up the atmosphere of the big game with countless outdoor screens being erected in villages and towns across Donegal.
The most optimistic ticketless fans will still travel to Croke Park in the hope of meeting a friend, long-lost cousin or neighbour who may just have a ‘spare.’
When Jimmy’s winning matches, anything is possible.