Rathangan was like a town in the grip of a general election yesterday, but there was only one candidate and he didn't have a second name.
As Big Brother reaches its finale tonight on Channel 4, posters and banners everywhere carried the slogan "Vote for Brian" and a phone number. It was a simple message and the electorate was responding, early and often.
The election headquarters are in the Mill House pub, where Brian Dowling's family are among the regulars. The 23-year-old Ryanair steward himself used to work in a chip shop next door.
If there is a one-party system in operation in Rathangan, the party will be here tonight, and the bar was calling in extra staff for what could be its busiest evening in years.
Ryanair cabin crew from Dublin and a busload from Naas are among the outsiders coming down to watch the programme, which will be beamed live on the pub's big screen, from 8.30 p.m. As luck would have it, the Lourdes Benefit Fund booked the function room weeks ago for a dance, and the 400 tickets are long sold out. But nobody will be surprised if the celebrations continue through the weekend until Sunday night, when Wallop the Cat are due to play the lounge.
Rathangan has endured weeks of being called a "sleepy village" in the English tabloids, but the place has never been livelier. In the Coffee Deck cafe nobody could recall similar excitement. Aimee Flanagan said no one was surprised the local boy became the star of the TV series: "He's just so funny. He was always like that."
The town has taken the unusual media attention in its stride, although the barman at the Mill House says the Sun is barred because of a story about Brian's sister.
More than 30 of Brian's friends and family have left Dublin Airport for London in a Ryanair plane bearing the words "Good luck Brian in Big Brother"
Brian is the eldest of seven, and his parents, Rosie and Gerard Dowling, and five of his six sisters, aged 22 down to eight, travelled with cousins and friends on the flight. His sister, Tracey, who is expecting a baby was watching on television.
His father, Gerard, shrugs his shoulders about the way the programme highlighted the fact his son is gay. "I don't think it turned out the way they thought it would. It's no big deal."
The Big Brother experience has been good for all his family. "I think it's fantastic," says Michelle (22), the eldest sister. `He's given us the best nine weeks of our lives." The flight was Brian's mother's biggest concern yesterday. "I've never flown before and I'm petrified."
At the Dowling home outside town Brian's aunt, Mary Raleigh, was one of the few relatives not to have joined the exodus to England for tonight's programme.
She was refusing to think about defeat for her "brilliant" nephew, but she was at a loss to know what she herself would do when the series ended: "For the last nine weeks I've gone to bed with Big Brother and woken up with Big Brother. I've done nothing else."
Despite being dubbed the "trolley dolly" by the English tabloids, Dowling's sexuality is not an issue in Rathangan, according to Phil Doyle.
"People never even blinked. He's such a nice fella. But the fact that he's from here, he could have been a mass murderer and people would have cheered for him anyway."
Ryanair said it would give £1,000 a week to charity for every week Brian stayed in the Big Brother house. Yesterday a cheque for £10,000 sterling was presented to the British charity, the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children.
