East count: The contrast was surreal. There was Fianna Fáil, sitting in a glum little huddle at the back of the Puddenhill Equestrian Centre, praying that Avril Doyle would arrive on a broomstick and create a distraction (she didn't do either).
And here was tall and tanned Phil Hogan, Fine Gael's director of elections, sashaying round the count corral like John Wayne, beaming victory and vindication. "We've waited 20 years for this. You have to savour these moments."
Here was Liam Aylward, Fianna Fáil's front-running candidate, finally cutting loose from the huddle to demand a "major Cabinet reshuffle". And there was FG's front-runner and poll-topper . . . no, actually, there she wasn't. She was back home in the Ardee sunshine, watering a few trees, eating her 45th birthday cake and - though she didn't say so herself - attending the annual blessing of the graves in the cemetery where her father was buried last year.
Two years ago, who'd have thought it? "I'm only reflecting what I've been hearing on the campaign trail," said Liam Aylward, innocently, looking remarkably surprised at the reaction to his comment.
"I'm reflecting the view as expressed to me by people and particularly my own organisation. I'm saying it's a major wake-up call. I'm looking at the number of seats lost at local level, the number of good, hard-working councillors who lost seats through no fault of their own.
"They were the victims of something for which this Government is perceived to be responsible."
He might have been the first to break ranks but he won't be the last. In the dreary longeurs of a Sunday afternoon, in a virtually empty count centre in the part of Meath few had ever set foot in before, there was plenty of time for post-mortems and recriminations.
Veteran Fianna Fáilers, unable to contain themselves any longer, finally admitted that the word "arrogance" had peppered many a conversation on the doorsteps. One summed it up as "e-voting, McDowell and Fianna Fáil people not tending their home patches". In that order? Eh, McDowell first then.
But all credit to the two FF candidates at least for showing up early in the day and slogging it out with the few who were there. Justin Barrett, his cheerful wife, Bernadette, and their three small children had been fixtures around the place since early morning. As the day dragged on, Barrett developed a theory that the count delays all over the country were FF's way of "turning us on to electronic counting".
Nuala Ahern was there to represent the Greens, conceding that their clothes might have been stolen but that they were "good at knitting new clothes - and hoping they're going to fit closer than at present".
Later in the evening, Peter Cassells turned up, suggesting that he was used to all this, what "with the national wage talks going on till all hours of the morning".
Except, Peter, this time it's personal? "That's true. This time it's personal. It's in the lap of the gods."
Meanwhile, Aylward (a Kilkenny man) and Brendan Howlin (from Wexford) were attempting to amuse themselves by watching Kilkenny v Wexford. In the dying seconds of the march, Wexford scores to win. "Jeez, if we won that, we'll win this," said Howlin.
"We lost that so we'll probably lose this as well," said Aylward (before he cut loose, interestingly).
Somewhere in the background, Jim O'Brien, Máiréad McGuinness's campaign manager (his first time out as well as hers), was on his mobile, telling a supporter: "We're flyin' it, she's going to top the poll."
At about 7 p.m., the star of the hour finally arrived in a car laden with husband, children, her mother and her godmother. Just then, out in the balmy summer's evening on Puddenhill, surrounded by small nieces and nephews, a scattering of in-laws and farming neighbours, it looked like a summer barbecue in the country.
"It's the IFA, playing with politics," said one observer. Just then, Enda Kenny turned up in a check shirt and tan trousers, looking like the man in charge of the barbie or running the barn-dance. "Fine Gael are on the move. We turned a corner today," he told the proud little McGuinness camp.
"Ðidn't we do well for novices?" said McGuinness after planting a kiss on Jim O'Brien's lips and giving him a long, emotional hug before giving another to Nicky Coffey, a former RTÉ mentor. "He taught me everything I know."
Back inside the centre, the votes continued to pile on to her table, while Avril Doyle's seemed to wilt.
And popping up nearby like a beaming pixie, was Alan Gillis, the man displaced by Doyle five years ago.
"When you enlist you have to soldier," he beamed. "If you can't stand the heat, don't go into the kitchen." Who on earth can he be talking about?