Court sketch/Paul Cullen: Even in victory, there wasn't much for Pádraig Nally to celebrate yesterday, and it showed. Barely a flicker of emotion played across his weary face as Mr Justice Nicholas Kearns read out the decision of the Court of Criminal Appeal.
Even when the legal jargon had been deciphered and it became clear that his conviction was being quashed, the 62-year-old Co Mayo farmer's face remained bowed and impassive.
A man of few words at the best of times, he showed no inclination to display satisfaction at the verdict.
In the past, his neighbours and friends have been vocal on his behalf, but those who attended in court were restrained in their reaction; there were a few fists clenched in signs of victory, but no one cared to say much to the media either in the court or outside.
In truth, yesterday was just a way-station on Mr Nally's voyage through the legal system, and his is a case in which there are no winners.
Almost two years to the day since he killed John "Frog" Ward, a Traveller and father of 11 who trespassed on his Co Mayo farm, he has already spent 11 months in jail. Now he must face a retrial, and the attendant pressures this highly divisive case will attract.
Traveller activist Martin Collins, who was one of the few people in court yesterday willing to venture an opinion, described the outcome as regrettable. "This is an awful decision that will force everyone to relive the ordeal. It will have a devastating effect on those involved, especially the Ward family."
After the long wait, yesterday's hearing lasted barely five minutes, with Mr Justice Kearns opting to read just the concluding paragraphs of the 18-page judgment.
In criticising the prosecution's failure in the original trial to cite two important legal precedents, he suggested this happened because the trial took place procul ab urbe, "far from the city", where lawyers had difficulty marshalling their legal authorities.
By yesterday evening Mr Nally, who was led from court in handcuffs and then taken away from the Four Courts in a prison van, was a free man, having been released on bail from prison in Portlaoise.
Yet freedom in remote Co Mayo, procul ab urbe, must surely be a qualified pleasure for a man who, his trial heard, was unable to sleep even before the Ward killing out of a fear of being killed by intruders.