"Well, done Patser!" shouted a young blonde woman as the newly re-elected Labour leader Pat Rabbitte got the nod in Dublin South West.
"That's his name," explained the woman, Lucy, a journalism graduate who also happens to be Rabbitte's daughter.
But despite being re-elected an impressive six votes short of the first quota, Patser wasn't in the best of form. The election result, he said, was "extraordinary". "The Irish people seemed to be in the mood for change until the last week of the campaign they changed their minds, I'm not sure why," he said.
When one journalist asked about whether a Labour/Fianna Fáil coalition was still off the agenda, Patser snapped "yes". And when pressed further his response was slow and vaguely menacing.
"Is. There. Anything. About. Yes. You. Don't. Understand?"
Patser can be scary when he wants to be even if he did apologise to the reporter afterwards. "If you'd been asked that question as many times as I have over the last few weeks you'd understand," he sighed.
Looking radiant in a red linen dress with a green necklace, Mayo colours worn in tribute to Patser's provenance, his Dubliner wife Derry looked on proudly with two of their three daughters. She declined to say what she thought about Patser's "menopausal Paris Hilton" comments during the campaign. "Let's just say he knows how I felt," she said with a grimace.
Earlier, the Curse of Dublin South West had struck the count centre.
Sinn Féin's Seán Crowe, the poll topper last time around, cut a dejected figure as news filtered through that he was a goner. A surprise winner in this election, Fine Gael's Brian Hayes topped the poll in 1997 and then lost his seat five years ago. Now it was Crowe's turn to suffer at the hands of this volatile electorate. "It couldn't have happened to a nicer guy," Crowe said of himself, citing the work he had done locally.
"In Dublin South West it's clearly dangerous if you top the poll, so thank God I didn't," said Fianna Fáil's Charlie O'Connor, aka Mr Tallaght, who, wearing a tie festooned with hearts, took the fourth seat after Conor Lenihan, Brian Hayes and Rabbitte.
Lenihan, who with Hayes was elected after the first count, reckoned pundits had written him off because they thought as junior minister for foreign affairs he spent too much time in Africa. "Well, it happens to be Africa Day today and I'm glad to say they were wrong," he said.
There was a lot of love in the count centre. Mr Tallaght said he was shocked and saddened by Crowe's defeat. In true Fianna Fáil tradition, Mr Africa was held aloft by supporters but he wasn't up there for long. "I've lost weight but not that much," he said. The successful candidate's children and, in Mr Tallaght's case, grandchildren, ran around dispensing fierce hugs.
By 7pm it was all over - no late night recounts for this lot. Still, "I'm exhausted," said Hayes's wife Genevieve, reminiscing about five years ago when her husband lost his seat. "Politics is a dirty, filthy, rotten game but it's a bug. The election is like doing a job interview in front of 30,000 people." Patser, on the other hand, wasn't quite so upbeat as he got ready to leave the count centre. "The people changed their minds," he repeated for the benefit of yet another broadcaster. "I am not sure why."
