“I’ve never experienced something like this before. Compared to the worlds, there were only a couple of family and friends there today, but the media is everywhere, which feels weird for me.”

Reality rules her waking world now; the golden medal emitting a shine as sparkling as her smile not merely encapsulates the devotion of half a lifetime, but also determines how she now lives the rest of it.

Those who know her intimately appreciate that it will not alter the bones of her personality. Nonetheless, a change is going to come, as much as she might want things to remain the same.

“This is my first time talking to me ma and da,” she says, still stunned at being catapulted into the arms of a nation who have been mostly oblivious of her private and remorseless toil in quieter times.

“I’m so exhausted, I don’t know what I feel. What do these people want from me?”

The truth is that they neither know or, perhaps, even care.

A nation so suddenly and giddily drunk on her success may also feel they have ownership of her career progression now, too, despite the years spent ignoring or, at best, patronising her.

“Everyone’s saying I’ve a great community, but I’ve been saying that for years. Yizzer mustn’t have been listening to me. When I see them, I’m sure I’ll be bawling my eyes out.

“I’m not a fame-hogger. What is fame, do you know what I mean? I’m about humility. You can be famous and be a ‘you know what’. I haven’t replied to anyone because I don’t know where to start. For me, it’s about where I’m from. Everything else is overwhelming. People tell me I speak so well, but that’s just me. What you see is what you get.”

In recent days, we have all been invited with wonderfully carefree abandon to share the most intimate details of her life by warm, welcoming friends and families.

If it has felt that everyone has become invested in her remarkable life’s tale, it might seem natural now to claim distant ownership of her next move.

The Paris promise of more golden glory? The professional path to fame and fortune? Or, maybe, merely the serenity of peace without the pressure to fight again?

How lucky Robert Frost was to have only two roads diverging before him in the woods.

Harrington admitted the pressure of shouldering a nation’s support this month did not burden her as much as it might have done another; still and all, perhaps it may be now time for us all to gently allow her to rest awhile and take her ease amongst her own.

As with Katie Taylor before her, Harrington has been content to pursue her ambitions far from the madding crowd and the TV cameras, too.

Most Irish people only really awoke to the Harrington fairytale this summer; she has been living the reality for all her life and, once the bunting is removed and the news vans move on, so she must, too.

It seemed, then, almost impolite to interrupt her journey back home in an attempt to hastily demand a revelation as to her next move when all she wants to do is see her dogs and watch TV.

"I knew this was going to be the question and, to me, that is a question that shouldn't be asked. This is about my time, this is about me winning an Olympic medal.”

Turning professional will require something different from her, where hurting opponents, rather than scoring points, is the priority; her flexibility suggests she could manage that transition comfortably.

To remain amateur would retain the close-knit support of the High Performance Unit, but also the somewhat chaotic IABA, whose actions do not always inspire confidence.

Although she joked about her greying hairs, her admirable devotion to her place of work entertains the possibility that she might just decide to hang up her gloves; the impact of what she has achieved this summer might have nudged that particular scenario to the sidelines, but these are considerations for another day. 

For now, as the national obsession naturally subsides, she will wallow in a, hopefully, bearable lightness of just being.

“I haven’t even shed a tear yet,” she says. She deserves the time away from the public glare to cry, laugh and enjoy a new life she hopes will remain as close as possible to the one she has lived until now.

At home in the village that raised her.