They were the best days of our lives. This is how so many of the Irish remember Italia 90 and all that came with it — the atmosphere of wild celebration, the scenes of chaos, the fine madness.

Declan Lynch recalls the great moments — Packie’s save and his leap into immortality; Pavarotti’s ‘Nessun Dorma’ and U2’s ‘Put ’Em Under Pressure’; Kevin Sheedy’s sweet strike; and all that drinking. Days of Heaven is full of hilarious accounts of how the Irish abandoned reality in that glorious time called Italia 90.

But it wasn’t just the fortunes of the football team that were changing during the Charlton Years. The economy was about to be utterly transformed; the Church was on the verge of disaster; there were Irish people winning Oscars and selling millions of rock ’n’ roll albums; there were new voices in the media; and a woman was running for President. And there was Jack, our most unlikely icon.

In this brilliant book, Declan Lynch brings it all together, the sporting, the social and the autobiographical. Dermot Morgan and Father Michael Cleary were part of the story too; U2 and UB40 made their contributions alongside Eamon Dunphy and Charles Haughey.

Days of Heaven brings us back to this extraordinary time. And it brings it all to life again.