The first meeting of the new Dáil on June 10th had many significant moments. Most attention focused, naturally, on the election of Bertie Ahern as Taoiseach for a third term, and on the diverse majority that elected him, writes Noel Whelan.
Later that evening, however, there was another moment which symbolised the consequences of the election result for Sinn Féin.
When Ahern returned from Áras an Uachtaráin to lead the traditional parade of new Ministers into the Dáil chamber, the House, and indeed the live TV and radio audiences, waited for the Taoiseach's formal announcement of his new Cabinet. The expected order of business was interrupted when Sinn Féin's Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin rose to object to the arrangements for the debate on the appointment of Ministers, and demanded that he and his party be given speaking rights.
Ó Caoláin sought to force the matter to a vote so the new Ceann Comhairle, John O'Donoghue, went through the required procedure of calling those in favour to shout Tá and those against to shout Níl. O'Donoghue then asked those deputies saying Tá to stand to see if their number met the 10 deputies required to trigger a division of the House.
Just the four Sinn Féin deputies stood. Small in number and isolated, they couldn't even force a vote on whether they could speak. It was a stark physical representation of how disappointing the election and its results were for Sinn Féin.
Its poor performance has not only impacted on the party's morale North and South; it has also significantly damaged the brand.
Over the last decade Sinn Féin has developed a new mythology to deflect from the compromises made as part of the peace process.
Although its electoral and political achievement in Northern Ireland has been considerable, Sinn Féin has still fallen far short of achieving its original political aims.
Being the second largest component in a centrist, cross-party, Paisley-led government in the "Six Counties" is a long way from achieving the 32-county, united socialist republic for which so many of Sinn Féin's folk heroes had killed or died.
Over the last decade, Sinn Féin has had to accept the futility of continuing the armed struggle. It has had to accept the removal of the pretence of de jure Irish unity and the rewording of Articles Two and Three of the Republic's Constitution.
It has had to accept the principle of consent and face up to the de facto reality that Ireland is partitioned and will be for the foreseeable future. In order to exercise power, it has had to enter the machinery of government in a Northern Ireland within the UK.
These have been large concessions. To most of us they have been welcome and necessary shifts in the interest of peace, but for many of Sinn Féin's core supporters they have been unpalatable.
This is why the party tried to sweeten the pill for its followers by coating it in the promise of symbolic Irish unity.
It sought to assuage discontent among volunteers and supporters by leading them to believe that the party was on the verge of being in government on both sides of the Border, that someday soon the party's Northern MPs would sit and speak in the Dáil chamber and even that Gerry Adams would be president of Ireland by the time the centenary of the 1916 Rising came around.
Now, however, reality has again brutally intruded on Sinn Féin's new mythology.
Sinn Féin representation in the 30th Dáil is even smaller than what it was in the 29th Dáil, and the disintegration of the "technical group" of Independents and small parties means that opportunities for Sinn Féin TDs to speak in the Dáil chamber will be few and far between over the next five years.
The prospect of its Northern MPs doing so is now non-existent.
There is also little likelihood of Sinn Féin being in government in the Republic anytime soon. Sinn Féin will be isolated on the Opposition benches for the next five years.
It may hold or increase its representation in the next Dáil but the chances of Fianna Fáil, which has now found another small party partner in the Greens, needing or choosing to go into government with Sinn Féin are more remote.
Adams's prospects of winning the next presidential election, due in 2010, were always slim, but they dissipated entirely when he imploded live on national television in the Prime Time election debate with the other smaller party leaders.
Generating good pan-nationalist photo opportunities has also been part of Sinn Féin's strategy of building symbolic Irish unity.
This began with the Hume-Adams-Reynolds handshake on the steps of Government Buildings after the first ceasefire, and continued with various Sinn Féin delegations being photographed on visits to the Taoiseach.
Now, however, the deepening relationship between Ahern and Ian Paisley operates to undermine this aspect of the symbolism for Sinn Féin.
One of the reasons why Northern Ireland's new First Minister has been so enthusiastic about engaging in high-profile events with Ahern is because it is the Taoiseach, as the leader of Irish nationalism, who Paisley, the leader of unionism, sees as his equal.
It is striking how some of the most significant moments in this last stage of the peace process have been Paisley and Ahern-only events from which Sinn Féin has been sidelined. The visit to the Battle of the Boyne site in mid-May was the most striking example.
There will be much more of this Paisley-Ahern dynamic as North-South councils and other cross-Border co-operation events are rolled out over the next few years.
It's not surprising, therefore, that Adams devoted most of his speech at the party's annual commemoration in Bodenstown last weekend to the need to re-examine the party's strategy in the Republic.
He must know that the setback which the party sustained last month in the Republic has the potential to be also destabilising for the party in Northern Ireland.