The Final Countdown

By Grace Campbell


Driving up to the Punchestown Event Centre, my mind was running wild about what madness would greet me at the count centre’s door. Images of sweat trickling down the foreheads of worried faces, nervous hands twitching in anticipation of results, people walking aimlessly around the centre to settle their restlessness – and that was just the journalists.

Candidates from the East constituency had run strong but predictable campaigns and the results were a given before the very first vote was counted. With the exception of whether or not Senator John Paul Phelan would get the last available seat, the results in the East constituency had been foreseen from the outset.

By the time I entered the doors in Punchestown on Sunday afternoon, the elements of the East candidate’s campaigns were reflected in the sights that met my eyes. The hall was predominantly empty with very few supporters and only one candidate in attendance. The media occupied a small corner cordoned off behind railings and other than that vote counters and tallymen stood casually around, tired and fed up with the long weekend they had just endured.

Where was the excitement? Where was the drama? Similarly to the campaigns, the counts were there to fulfil a purpose. Entertainment was only a by-product that had to flow naturally from the process. In this case it did not.

The attempt to add excitement to the campaign trail saw Mairead McGuiness and John Paul Phelan being placed against each other to recreate the tension that existed between McGuinness and Doyle five years previous. Whether this game plan was constructed within Fine Gael or by the media is yet to be determined, but either way, the drama fizzled out early on when it became apparent that McGuinness and Phelan had nothing but goodwill for each other. The chance of a cat fight or even a war of words was next to none.

One would think that having a Libertas candidate thrown into the mix would create the much needed buzz that was missing from the East constituency. Raymond O’Malley failed to make a splash however and his dismal performance in the count of first preference votes illustrated this.

The looming results of the first count were being delivered at 9pm and until then the minutes and seconds were ticking by, one after another. At 8pm, the adrenalin missing from the afternoon began to kick in. The hall suddenly seemed smaller as countless supporters flooded the vacant space.

Candidates were dotted around the centre, each surrounded by their 'people' offering moral support. When 9pm was only moments away, every flash of a camera made it feel like New Year’s Eve and that a countdown for the new Millennium would start at any second.

The returning officer announced the predictable results we all saw coming but this did not take away from the raw emotion that filled the count centre. Fine Gael supporters lapped up the victory and Labour followers were ecstatic, even though Childers had yet to reach the quota.

For those few moments, the experience of a count is electric, the atmosphere unparalleled. I felt like I was witnessing history in the making. It was worth the long and tiring wait. Similarly to the campaigns by candidates in the East, the count was a slow burner but as they say “patience is a virtue” and it certainly paid off in Punchestown.