Up and down Michigan Avenue they walked.
Up and down Wabash and State and along by the shore of Lake Michigan.
They covered more than one Magnificent Mile.
The Irish were in Chicago in force for last Saturday's rugby game against the New Zealand All Blacks.
There were many New Zealand fans on the streets and avenues too, but they were clearly outnumbered by the Irish.
Green clothing and accessories are a lot easier to spot than black.
The numerical superiority of Irish fans was confirmed when Soldier Field, home of the Chicago Bears, was filled to capacity for the match.
It had the feel of a home game for the men in green in a stadium where Irish rugby history was made nine years ago with a win over the All Blacks for the first time ever.
Would there be a repeat?
Sadly, from the Irish perspective, no.
The All Blacks might or might not have been thinking of 2016.
Regardless, they came to play on the day and for the day. And after performing the Haka to everyone's delight they won the day by 26 to 13.
Still, the Irish have not entirely lost their philosophical view of things.
New Zealand were at the tail end of their regular season; Ireland were just starting their new season with a series of four autumn internationals, the first being this one in the Windy City.
There was room for improvement on the part of Andy Farrell's men, and surely that would come in the next few weeks when Ireland play Japan, Australis and South Africa.
As it turned out match day wasn't all that windy at all.
Most of the wind came in the form of post match post mortems in various hostelries, Irish and otherwise.
And if the result didn't go the Irish way there was a prevailing view that the trip to Chicago was well worth it anyway.
The wide streets, varied architecture, general air of hospitality and fine food were reasons to enjoy America's third largest city from first step to last.
But there was other stuff going on. And there has been other stuff for several months now.
Chicago is a primary target for immigration enforcement by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
So even as the mood in the downtown part of the city was relaxed and celebratory, the atmosphere in some of the suburbs was anything but.
As rugby players clashed on a stadium pitch there were clashes in one of those suburbs, Evanston, which is to the north of the city's epicenter.
In scenes reminiscent of the dustbin lids protests in Belfast during the early years of the Troubles residents of Chicago's outlying neighborhoods have been using whistles to warn of ICE raids.
In Evanston, Halloween 2025 was marked less by trick or treat than by tear gas and pepper balls.
This from an NPR report: "Last week, Democratic Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker called for federal agents to pause 'Operation Midway Blitz' (the Chicago immigration enforcement campaign) during the Halloween weekend.
'If you are unwilling to cease operations and leave our city, can we at least agree that our children should not be victims, especially on Halloween?' Pritzker asked.
"As tensions rise in Chicago, volunteers patrol neighborhoods to oppose ICE and help migrants escape Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem called the request 'shameful.'
'We're absolutely not willing to put on pause any work that we will do to keep communities safe,' she responded in a press conference."
Added the report: "On Friday, clashes between protesters and immigration agents erupted near a middle school in Evanston, a suburb north of Chicago.
Witnesses shared video footage of an agent holding a man down and repeatedly hitting him in the head."
Back on Michigan and Wabash the rugby strollers and other sundry visitors would be forgiven for not having a clue what was going on just a few miles away.
But if the result of the game at Soldier Field was in stark contrast to that of 2016, so too is the America of 2025 a starkly different place in comparison to what it was less than a decade ago.
