The little red- bricked terraced house was decorated from top to bottom in yellow and white bunting. Flags of the same colour were wedged in between the closed window frames.
Cloth daffodils with heads bent in humility fluttered gently on the sills.
The house five or six doors down was festooned in the green of Ireland with two Cork GAA flags flying on either side, a bonsai-sized tree growing out of the cracked chimney pot.
That was Sunday last.
We were in Cork for the big football game.
"What's the yellow and white flags for?" asked a Kerry lad of his dad.
"Dunno boy. They must be Antrim hurler supporters."
Wrong team.
Yellow is also the papal colour.
We all agree Pope Benedict is magic.
Or do we?
This week the Eucharistic Congress was back in Ireland for the first time in 80 years.
On Sunday last as part of a week-long celebration, there was a procession through lovely Listowel.
The front window of our pub was decorated with fresh flowers, a statue of the Infant De Prague and a print of Our Lady, St Joseph and the Baby Jesus sitting on a small donkey with thin legs.
I used to say my Hail Marys in front of the now faded picture and I always wondered how the donkey could carry a whole family on legs as thin as my small boy's wrists.
Hundreds took part in the sacred Sunday procession.
I wasn't there but I know how it was.
This season's Holy Communion girls were in their white-laced dresses with the beads nana gave safe in shiny white handbags. Eyes Angelic and full of hope. Restless small boys in their school uniforms did their best to look holy. Small steps hurrying to keep time.
Everyone dressed up in their Sunday best. Good suits by the men and 'a bit of style' by the women with their hair done.
Young and old marched through the town in what was a beautiful reminder of the innocence of the young and the enduring faith of the older generation.
The Rosary was said in all its mysteries and hymns were sung.
'Faith of our Fathers' was the finale in The Square. My friend Sean sent it to me live over his phone.
The old hymn was sung as passionately as any football anthem.
It was an appropriate ending for this was the faith of our fathers and it was replicated a thousand times all over Ireland this weekend.
Back in 1932 Ireland was only 10 years old and we were trying so hard to grow up as a nation.
The Pope granted the new country a huge favour.
By allowing us to host the Eucharistic Congress he effectively endorsed an Ireland born out of revolutionary struggle just a decade before.
Ireland was en fete.
It was a celebration of our faith and our emergence as a nation once again.
Thousands prayed in Dublin as one and when Count John McCormack sang 'Panis Angelicus' our forefathers wept.
Next Sunday (tomorrow) 80,000 will pack Croke Park.
Tickets for the Hogan and Cusack, at a tenner each, are selling out fast.
The faithful will travel from all over Ireland.
The Pope's men might hope for cheerleader chants of 'you'll never beat the Vatican'.
The abused know that. They never did beat the Vatican. Not really.
My savvy mammy of 83 warned me "don't turn millions of people against you by knocking the Eucharistic Congress. People are very proud of the fact their fathers cycled there from Kerry. We love our faith. If you're ever in any kind of turmoil the one place you can turn to is The Lord. We have nowhere else to go."
Yet I am deeply uncomfortable with the fact that the congress will be seen as an endorsement of the institution that is the church.
Ah but who am I to talk?
Sure if I went to confession the priest would be late for his tea, that's if I got as far as the box without getting struck by lightning.
I'm a recidivist sinner but the Pope is infallible.
So he's right even when he's wrong.
People respect their sublimely human priests and nuns at a local level. Most of the bad ones are gone and good riddance.
But the executive who run the church are not as well regarded.
Our cardinal in Armagh was part of a process that sold an abused young boy into emotional slavery and then used the Nuremberg defence of 'I was only following orders'. The Popes of Rome knew well the abuse was going on. They had to. They all knew.
The church has acknowledged the sins of sexual abuse but it had to be dragged out piecemeal and a forced apology lacks credibility.
Women are second-class citizens in posh golf clubs and the Roman Catholic Church.
The institution remains intact and arrogant.
Still in power, so much so that, like all oligarchies and dictatorships, it bans free speech.
Priests have been silenced in this country.
Debate within the church is non-existent.
But what of next Sunday in Croke Park? Should we go?
There's for and against.
Peacock-plumaged cardinals and bishops in lavish vestments are far removed from a simple carpenter who dressed in a homespun tunic and sandals.
Can you honestly tell me Jesus would have approved of such pomp?
I know this is a simplification.
Archbishop Diarmuid Martin will be there on Sunday.
He is one of many good men who are trying with all their might to arrange a reformation from within.
But the ritual and displays of power remind me of those big armament parades by the Russians during the Cold War.
It was a mix of look how powerful we are and aren't we great all the same and don't mess with us, we're too big.
Croke Park will be as full as on All-Ireland final day.
Old men in sequinned frocks will call the shots, yet the institution that is the Catholic Church didn't fill the seats.
It was the faith of the Hail Mary if you were in a bit of trouble or the pride in following in your dad and mam's footsteps as you trek to Dublin for a pilgrimage of remembrance or the joy of a Mass beautifully spoken and sung in the words Our Saviour gave us.
There are good people who will get great solace from the ceremony and the sense of certainty and continuity the church provides in such unsettled times. No one wants to throw out the baby with the bathwater but the water is not clean and the bath has dirty tide marks right up to the rim.
For the thousands like my mother, it's all about loyalty and devotion to the old faith that saw us through famine and war, from baptism to last rites, and an unshakeable belief in a man called Jesus Christ.
For when the praying people of Ireland stand together for the Our Father in Croke Park next Sunday, it will be Our Father in Heaven they will honour and not our father who art in Rome.
"Faith of our fathers, holy faith.
"We will be true to thee 'til death."