The Irish market duly rebounded after the overnight recovery on Wall Street, but a lot of the early gains were clawed back in afternoon trading at it became clear that Wall Street's dramatic rise on Tuesday was not going to be repeated.

The Dow was more than 100 points ahead as the Irish market closed.

However it eventually closed down 45 points in a computer-driven late sell-off so the Dublin market may only see further tentative demand today.

Dealers said that the bulk of activity yesterday involved private investors with institutions occasionally going into the market to pick up bargains.

After its bumper results, CRH finally made serious progress and dealt up 65p to 835p and was still drawing bids at that level.

Most of the leaders closed ahead on the day although well down on their earlier highs, with AIB hitting 925p in early trading before closing marginally lower on the day on 880p. AIB has been one of the best-performing stocks this year and that possibly accounts for yesterday's relative under-performance.

Bank of Ireland hit an £11 early high before closing up 40p on £10.70 while Anglo Irish regained ground with a 10p jump to 165p.

Speculation that Smurfit will be hit by downgradings after a downbeat results presentation sent the share 5p lower to 125p, its lowest level for five years. Downgradings of Avonmore Waterford after its interims are unlikely to send the share price lower, but analysts believe that the share may struggle to make much progress given the uncertainty over its pigmeat operations. Fyffes was unchanged as it indicated that it intends to go into the market buying back shares certainly Fyffes is not short of cash for such a move.

Waterford Wedgwood, however, gained 3p to 62p even though the group is also cautious about future prospects, especially in its Wedgwood china division. Elsewhere, Kerry was 20p higher on 760p, Golden Vale gained 4p to 86p.