It was a good Olympics for Ireland because four medals is our third highest total of all-time, after six in 2012 and five in 1956. We never find it easy to get on the podium.

It was a bad Olympics for Ireland because there were reasonable expectations that we might do a bit better. Complacency should be checked by the fact that Croatia, whose population is slightly less than ours, won eight medals and New Zealand, whose population is slightly more, won 20.

It was a battling Olympics for Ireland because an encouraging number of our competitors, despite not being in medal contention, got the very best out of themselves on the biggest stage of all.

Best of the good were Paul O’Donovan and Fintan McCarthy and Kellie Harrington, though the vagaries of the Olympic timetable mean I don’t know whether the lightweight boxer emulated the lightweight double sculls pairs in joining that select band of Irish gold medallists which numbered just eight before this morning’s boxing final.

What we do know is that the trio’s results in Tokyo constitute a marvellous achievement. The Skibbereen duo’s commendable modesty shouldn’t mask the fact that rowing is a difficult sport in which to win an Olympic medal with powerful and populous nations devoting considerable resources to the quest.

That Great Britain spent more on rowing than on any other sport in this Olympic cycle yet came away with just a silver and bronze puts Ireland’s gold and bronze into context.

Boxing, meanwhile, boasts one of the most difficult qualification processes in the Games. To have battled through the elimination tournaments is to already have done something meaningful.

What O’Donovan/McCarthy and Harrington have in common is that they were leading contenders for the past number of years, with both winning world titles in the run-up to the games. Not the smallest part of their achievement is to have coped so well with the burden of being long-time medal favourites, particularly after Covid-19 saw the games put back a year.

That postponement turned out to be a godsend for the women’s coxless four crew of Aifric Keogh, Eimear Lambe, Fiona Murtagh and Emily Hegarty — this year’s Paul and Gary O’Donovan-style surprises packages. Only assembled in the past year, the quartet surpassed expectations in Tokyo with a bronze medal which hints at greater things ahead.

Aidan Walsh also provided a prime example of what it means to seize the day. The largely unfancied Belfast welterweight’s bronze medal underlined boxing’s ability to persistently deliver for Ireland at the Olympics to an extent not even approached by any other sport.

There might even have been a third boxing medal as Kurt Walker was probably Ireland’s unluckiest competitor. The Lisburn featherweight’s defeat of world champion Mirazizbek Mirzakhalilov was one of the Irish performances of the games and his subsequent quarter-final defeat to eventual silver medallist Duke Ragan of the US was a very close run thing indeed.

Rory McIlroy wasn’t far off a medal either. Having expressed his scepticism about the competition, McIlroy put his money where his mouth wasn’t with a battling display which saw him reach a play-off for bronze. It’s an effort worth remembering the next time Irish Twitter decides to arraign him for treason.

This may seem slightly counter-intuitive but rowing was responsible for both the best and the worst Irish Olympic moments.

Sanita Puspure and the double sculls duo of Ronan Byrne and Philip Doyle both arrived in Tokyo as second favourites for gold. That neither even made the final suggests a certain taking of the eye off the ball by Rowing Ireland which prevented the sport from emulating boxing’s 2012 tour de force.

Perhaps the single most disappointing Irish moment of the games came when Rhys McClenaghan fell off the pommel horse early in his final routine and condemned himself to a disappointing seventh.

Three years ago McClenaghan announced himself as a medal contender when defeating Olympic champion Max Whitlock to win both European and Commonwealth gold.

But in Tokyo it was Whitlock winning the gold while McClenaghan failed to match the performance which had seen him qualify in second place.

That Whitlock is 28 shows that time is still on McClenaghan’s side, but a similar fall which cost the Irishman a medal at this year’s Europeans shows he’ll need to match the English great’s ability to perform under pressure.

Expectations were also high when Darragh Kenny qualified for the showjumping final in second place. But Wednesday’s final saw the Offaly rider fade to a disappointing 17th with another medal hopeful, Bertram Allen, just two places better off after qualifying in sixth. Cian O’Connor’s time fault, after a superb clear round, left Ireland without even a place in the jump-off, while the Swedes, who took gold yesterday, had three.

The showjumping performance turned from underwhelming to catastrophic when O’Connor was forced to withdraw from the team event and his replacement Shane Sweetnam’s subsequent elimination saw Ireland pull out without Kenny and Allen even getting to jump.

Three years ago, two surprise world silver medals suggested Ireland might be dark horses for Olympic glory. But things fell flat for both the women’s hockey and eventing teams. Neither had more than an outside shot at a medal but both would have hoped to perform better.

The hockey side’s hopes of making the knock-out stages disappeared when they lost 1-0 to India and after a fine start against South Africa, things fizzled out somewhat for a side who scored the lowest number of goals in the competition. A disastrous dressage section led to the eventers finishing a disappointing eighth.

Ireland’s athletes had no medal prospects but would have hoped for something a bit better than 12 first round eliminations out of 16. After the disappointing performance in this year’s European Indoors, which was a more realistic target, a rethink may be necessary if the potential of the current outstanding crop of juniors is to be maximised.

Yet, athletics did produce two of Ireland’s best battling performances. Thomas Barr’s third place in the first 400m hurdles semi-final saw him just miss out on the final, though his time would have been good enough to win the third semi.

When the subsequent final suggested that not only is the 400m hurdles event better than it’s ever been, but that it may have been the most competitive track event at the games, the magnitude of the Waterford man’s effort became even clearer.

The mixed 4x400m relay team of Cillin Greene, Phil Healy, Sophie Becker and Christopher O’Donnell’s national record effort in their semi-final gave us the rare sight these days of Irish singlets in an Olympic track final. Greene’s personal best on the first leg set the tone and was a stirring effort from a young Galway runner previously dogged by injury.

An Irish swimmer in an Olympic final is an even rarer sight and Mona McSharry’s effort in the 100m breaststroke represented both a significant national and personal milestone. Perhaps only athletics is more competitive than swimming at the games and it says everything about the Sligo 20-year-old’s effort that immediately behind her in the semi-final rankings were members of the powerhouse Australian, Chinese and British teams.

Also finishing in eighth place were the 22-year-old Cork rowing duo of Aoife Casey and Margaret Cremen. The young lightweight double sculls combination’s second in the B final earmarks them as possible medal hopes for Paris, not least because they’ll benefit from the expertise of national lightweight coach, and Aoife’s dad, Dominic Casey.

Another pair with a bright future are Robert Dickson and Seán Waddilove, the Dublin duo who’d also have finished eighth and secured a place in the 49er medal race had it not been for disqualification from two races. The 90 grams by which their harness was overweight is a quantity which may haunt them for some time. But wins in the first and last races of the regatta suggested that the world under 23 champions will be well placed to take over the mantle of the great Annalise Murphy as Irish sailing’s big hope.

A word too for Mallow’s Austin O’Connor, who wasn’t even expecting to compete at the games but found himself called in at the 11th hour when Cathal Daniels was forced to withdraw from the eventing competition.

While his teammates struggled, the 46-year-old worked his way up from 49th after the dressage to 20th after the cross country and a fine 13th after the showjumping.

Two of Ireland’s most gallant performances came in the final days. Brendan Boyce’s 10th in the 50km walk was a sterling effort as the event took place in the toughest possible conditions. And Stephanie Meadow, number 133 in the women’s world golf rankings, secured a fine seventh place.’

So that was Ireland’s Olympics. We could perhaps have done a bit better but we’ve certainly done a lot worse and we battled all the way. The medal count doubled from two to four compared to Rio with the number of top 10 finishes up from 12 to 17.

There was lots to be proud of, plenty to enjoy, plenty to think about for the future and also plenty to look forward to. See you by the Seine.