Michael D Higgins has won by a landslide in a symbolic presidential election among 2,500 Irish emigrants.
The Labour candidate received 40 per cent of first preference votes with independent Senator David Norris coming in second at 24 per cent in a count by the Ballotbox.ie website.
However, frontrunner Sean Gallagher finished fourth with 10 per cent, eight points behind Sinn Féin’s Martin McGuinness in third place at 18 per cent.
Irish emigrants from over 97 countries were polled by Ballotbox.ie, a site founded by recent Irish emigrants to highlight the disenfranchisement to Irish people once they leave the State.
The United Kingdom, United States, Australia, Canada and Germany were the dominant countries from which votes were received while predominant home constituencies were in Dublin and Cork. Other votes came from from Estonia, Malawi, Nicaragua and El Salvador.
Voting took place over six days and closed today, with IP technology used to block voters in Ireland and passport information used to discourage non-Irish voters.
Registering less than 10 per cent between them were Fine Gael candidate Gay Mitchell , independent Mary Davis and independent Dana Rosemary Scallon.