Irish runner Cillin Greene believes that the 4x400 mixed relay team have further enhanced the country's reputation as a serious athletic force after their eighth-placed finish in the final at the Olympic Stadium.
Poland claimed gold in the final with a superb final leg allowing them to come from behind to set a new Olympic record.
"A lot of the time the narrative of Irish people is that we came out here and we're trying to fill up numbers but I really think we showed everyone back home that we can actually compete on an international scale and really put it up to these bigger countries," Green said after the race.
The team of Greene, Phil Healy, Sophie Becker and Chris O'Donnell had set a new national record of 3:12.88 to qualify from a dramatic semi-final, but their final time of 3:15:04 saw them finish towards the end of the pack.
Their Heat had been a dramatic one as the winners, USA, and second-placed Dominican Republic were disqualified before dramatically being reinstated after successful appeals as they argued that the exchange zone fouls committed were the fault of race officials rather than the athletes themselves.
That meant that Germany and Spain were to miss out, but after an appeal, Germany were allowed to compete in an extended field but they would end up disqualified during the race.
Ireland were always facing a difficult ask of finishing in the medal spots as they were placed in lane one, but Galway's Greene started well to give Phil Healy a chance in leg two.
Healy raced away on her lap and was up to sixth at one point, but her changeover with Sophie Becker wasn’t helped by the German athlete crossing her path and a subsequent collision between Germany and Jamaica that left two runners on the deck just after handing over their batons.
Healy said that the collision did disrupt her link-up with Becker.
"Initially we were drawn in lane five but that changed throughout the day and there were nine teams instead of eight teams.
"I knew it was going to be a tough ask. On my leg, the majority were new into the teams today so they were fresh.
"Cillin set me up and I tried to do everything to put the team into contention.
"The German crossed in front of me just as we were coming to the changeover so that made me stutter a little coming into Sophie but we gave it everything out there today.
"To come eighth and represent the nation out here is just unbelievable."
Becker, who described the second handover as "carnage", ran well despite the disruption and left it up to O’Donnell to try and chase down Jamaica for seventh position.
"When we saw it was going to be nine teams instead of eight we knew it was going to be carnage, and it was," said Becker.
"It got very messy on the third leg. A German fell in front of Phil, she fell near me, we got out there and I tried to hang on."
O'Donnell was unable to overhaul Jamaica but he said that the Irish team should be extremely pleased with their efforts.
"I couldn't be prouder of my three teammates beside me, the two subs in the warm-up, the three other athletes who helped us get here and all of our coaches.
"We built a really, really good platform for ourselves this year. We finished seventh at the world relays, eighth at the Olympic Games, if Ireland were regulars at a World Cup quarter-final we’d be happy.
"We should be proud of ourselves. We’ve really built a platform now to build on for years to come. We hope to be regulars here."
Dominican Republic had been ahead for most of the race and took off for the final leg just ahead of the Netherlands, who would soon move into first as Ramsey Angela made a great start to the final stretch.
It would be Poland who would take gold down the stretch though with the powerful Kajetan Duszynski striding home for a team time of 3:09.87 with the Dominican Republic in second and USA in third.
