His nine catches for 131 yards and that defining TD secured a record-setting sixth Super Bowl win for the franchise. It also bagged him the game MVP award and an impossibly large Super Bowl XLIII ring that bears half-a-dozen diamonds around the team’s iconic logo.

It’s to this day in 2009, and to this rock, that he turns when pitching for Pittsburgh now.

“Oh my gosh. I mean, first up I would probably start talking like this, with my ring in my face. And maybe show off my ring and what that is about. Just explain Pittsburgh to him and the rich history and what it’s all about. Why we celebrate American football.”

Holmes was joined in Ireland last week by Alan Faneca, a Hall of Fame offensive guard who won his own ‘World Championship’ with the Steelers three years earlier, and whose own sales pitch somehow hitched that winning tradition to a humble heritage.

Faneca spoke of a blue-collar team from a blue-collar city. “We are not about making it look pretty,” he explained at Croke Park where, hours later, 500 fans would watch his old club lose a dour, defensively-dominated AFC North match-up by the Cleveland Browns.

Dustin Hopkins’ 34-yard field goal secured the ‘W’ for the Browns in the game’s dying breaths, but the ‘watch party’ at GAA HQ was a win-win for the Steelers who dolled up a Hogan Suite that felt like it had been transported wholesale from old Heinz Field in PA.

The entrance to the Hogan Stand was bedecked in Steelers black and gold and every fan was handed one of the club’s famous ‘Terrible Towels’ before ascending to a floor decorated with a merchandise stand and a host of imported culinary specialities.

Peanut butter and jelly buffalo wings were on the go for €10. There were Pittsburgh signature nachos. Crockpot chicken with Mexican beans, pepperbelle and taco sauce. Pulled beef brisket. Fudge puppy waffles. Steel City stinger cocktails. And plenty of beer on tap.

The smells assailed the senses even as Holmes and Faneca regaled the room and the game began and, if Steelers jerseys abounded, then there were converts to the causes of the Chicago Bears, Miami Dolphins, New York Jets and more again among the congregation.

You couldn’t but be impressed by a set-up instantly familiar to anyone who has ever attended a sporting event in the States. It was slick, smooth, sumptuous and boisterous. Mayo footballer Aidan O’Shea, an avid Steelers fan, was well impressed.

“I’ve never seen the place look like this,” said the three-time All Star on stage as GAA president Larry McCarthy and other association officials mingled around the room.

“The GAA could learn a few things from this.” Tickets for the event had gone on sale for €20 a pop in September and sold out within 23 hours. It's 40 years since the NFL first appeared on our screens via RTÉ and Channel 4, but this felt like a new departure for the sport on these shores. People wanted in.

Six months had passed since the franchise was last here and promoting their newly-acquired NFL marketing rights for Ireland, which they share with the Jacksonville Jaguars, as the sport steps up its attempt to make a larger footprint around the world.

The Steelers are one of nine teams with similar rights in Mexico, a country with a population 18 times the island of Ireland’s, an estimated seven million Steelers fans, and a nation with an attachment to them that goes back to the club’s 1970s heyday.

There were 2,000 fans at their first ‘watch party’ in Mexico City’s Pepsi Arena late in 2022. Double that took in the second at the same venue only two months ago and the plan is that the Croke Park version will become a regular occurrence too.

But why Ireland? This small, windswept outpost on the edge of Europe.

The short and, in fairness, consistent response is the ownership. Art Rooney, whose family hailed from Newry, was the club’s founder and his son Dan built on the relationship with the old country during his time in charge and in a stint as US Ambassador in Dublin.

Dan’s grandson, Dan Rooney III, is the club’s director of business development and strategy and he was a prominent presence last week as they visited Croke Park, Royal County Down Golf Club, the EPIC museum, and held a football camp at the National Indoor Arena.

Clare’s minor hurling champions and a selection of players from the American Football Ireland (AFI) league were put through their paces in Abbotstown by Holmes and Faneca and the club has introduced an Irish podcast and social media accounts too.

Incremental gains. “It’s probably a slow process, right?” Faneca predicted.

Rooney III spent time interning at the US Embassy during his grandfather’s stint in the Phoenix Park and the diplomatic life clearly rubbed off given the polished and practised responses to queries as to what they hope to gain from entering such a small market.

“This strategy from the Steelers is to grow the brand and the sport first,” he explained, “but in terms of our commercial opportunity here we have a lot of strong connections from my grandfather’s days here and everyone has been very open to chatting.”

The GAA has certainly been a willing partner, as evidenced by the open doors policy last weekend and last May. McCarthy, who knows America better than most given his years in New York, has described the relationship as the “start of a very long dance”.

The million dollar question everyone wants answered is when the Steelers, who faced the Bears in Dublin in a pre-season affair back in 1997, might play a regular season game here, but then Ireland isn’t alone with the come hithers.

The NFL added a 17th game to the schedule in 2021 and all teams will be required to give up a home game to a foreign clime in an eight-year window. England and Germany are already in business. Brazil, Spain and maybe France are in the running as thoughts turn to 2024.

Rooney is on record as stating that a game on Irish soil is a “big goal”. He was duly impressed by the Aer Lingus Classic between Navy and Notre Dame at the Aviva Stadium this year and Pitt University, who share a stadium, are due to play here in 2027.

The Steelers have nine home games in 2025, which makes that season a live contender for their home-from-home date, but the smart money for now would have to be on the franchise tapping into that much larger loyal fanbase south of the US border.

Not that Rooney is giving anything away.

“American football games in markets like Mexico or Ireland are an extremely real possibility,” was as far as he went. For now.