It was more of a wake than a party yesterday when a combination of explosives and gravity brought the giant cooling tower of the last remaining old-style peat-fired electricity generating station in Ireland crashing to the ground.
The cheers which greeted the demolition in seven seconds of the 89m (300ft) tower at Bellacorick in the vast boglands of northwest Mayo quickly turned to tears for many of the older onlookers.
Bridget Rowland dabbed her eyes with a handkerchief as the noise of the detonation faded and her family group was briefly enveloped in the dust flurry caused by the destruction of the huge landmark. "I watched it go with a tear in my eye," she admitted.
"We lived in the shadow of the station. It kept bread and butter on our tables in the 1960s and 1970s when there was hardly any work available locally and emigration seemed the only option."
Joseph Gardiner, a scaffolder when the generating station, commissioned in October 1962, was built, was only slightly less emotional.
"It's very sad to see it go," he said, "but we have to move on and look to the future."
Crowds estimated at more than 3,000 gathered on hillocks and other vantage points outside a special exclusion zone to watch the demolition.
Among them was Brendan Delaney, archive and heritage manager with the ESB, who said: "For the local community, it's nearly like attending the wake of a close friend."
Bellacorick generating station, which burned milled peat from the 7,000 acres of developed bogland in Erris, began pumping power into the national grid in October 1962.
In the work-scarce 1960s, the power station provided continuous employment for about 80 men with an annual payroll of almost £70,000.
Gerry Coyle and Michael Holmes, both members of Mayo County Council, expressed disappointment yesterday that the cooling tower could not be preserved as a local monument, given the contribution the generating station had made to stemming unemployment over a period of more than 40 years.
But former plant manager Noel Grealy pointed out that there was no realistic alternative to demolition, because of structural deterioration and weakening of the foundations.
Peter Hynes, director of services with the council, was optimistic that a gas-powered generating station might rise from the rubble of the old structure.
The N59 main road from Ballina to Belmullet was closed for about half an hour as the demolition, which cost in the region of €50,000, was carried out by Leeds-based experts, Robinson and Birdsell.