While Mary McAleese won the Aras, Dana is without question the real winner of the election. From entering the campaign to sneers, she exited with real success in the voting charts. She cheered up the country with her very individual mixture of calm confidence, honesty and sense of fun. If the political parties have any sense left in their befuddled brains, they should be wooing her to bits.
It was almost inevitable from the outset that the campaign was going to be muted and restrained since the aura of Mary Robinson hung over it. Everybody knew that Mrs Robinson would be a hard act to follow.
Apart from the Haughey government's refusal to allow her to deliver the prestigious Dimbleby Lectures on BBC Radio in 1991, the refusal in 1994 to allow her to co-chair an important committee set up to deal with UN reform and her facing down of Dick Spring by shaking hands with Gerry Adams during a trip to west Belfast, Mrs Robinson had created her own agenda.
In seven years she imbued the office of President with a confection of populist appeal - a carefully-balanced political gravitas embellished with the glamour of a superstar.
Mrs Robinson's many foreign visits were unqualified successes. She came to the office with a squeaky-clean past, a solid family background and an integrity in her personal and professional life which was to prove invaluable during a period when the country arguably descended into a ferment of allegations of squalid sleaze.
Many men came to see the Presidency as "feminised" in such a way that it would be almost impossible for any of them to follow in Mrs Robinson's footsteps. Michael D. Higgins was one of the few who could have filled the position with elan. Another was Senator David Norris. But both pulled out of the race for different reasons.
The result was a motley lineup of candidates who cantered through at a genteel pace, being carefully polite to punters and showing only the stickiest and sweetest of marshmallow faces to each other in public. Until Derek Nally's entry into the contest it seemed as if there would be an unprecedented allwoman line-up of candidates.
With Adi Roche put out of the running from very early on and the majority of the electorate not taking Dana seriously until the final week, the contest quickly became a two-handed exercise.
Mary McAleese appeared to have the right credentials both for Dublin 4 and Catholic Ireland, while Mary Banotti was recognised for achievements as an MEP plus her impeccable Fine Gael credentials. It became a question of who would blink first.