Verse and worse as emotions ride Portlaoise roller coaster

POETRY and emotion were the order of the day at the Laois Offaly count In Portlaoise yesterday. Add as with most of the supporters, they were related, There wad Joe Wisely for instance, so overcome at the election of Mountmellick Fianna Fail man Sean Moloney that he broke into a forceful recitation of Dangerous Dan McGrew. His plans for the night indicated he had serious intentions, of not living up to his surname. Zero tolerance or no zero tolerance, the only way he'd be leaving the pub at 11 was if he was out.

Meanwhile, young Gerard Killaly, who helped elect two Fianna Fail colleagues while losing himself, was inconsolable. Likewise some of losing Labour TD Pat Gallagher's supporters. Seeing both, Fianna Fail's director of elections, Liam Hyland, himself wiped away a tear. Then newly elected Fine Gael TD, Tom Enright, took Ger Killaly aside for a few soft words. He, after all, went through something similar in 1992 when he lost his seat.

Elsewhere, Ger Connolly, another of Fianna Fall's director of elections, was advising a journalist on diet. "Humble pie," he strongly recommended, Loads of it, "They" (the media) had said it couldn't be done. Fianna Fail get three seats out of the five? Would you go away, they said. It couldn't be done.

Brian Cowen was being humble, It was "not a day to be triumphalist," he laid. His new colleagues, Sean Moloney and Sean Flemming, thanked members of the Fianna Fail family diaspora, one of whom travelled from Brazil to help them win. Then Fine Gael's Charlie Flanagan spoiled it all by saying "keep the posters, there'll be an election In November," That was yesterday, all bosom buddies and bonhomie. On Saturday it was more tense as the first count was done and redone. The outcome kept receding, like a rainbow. Votes were missing, it was said. Some retreated to a TV room where a weather forecaster announced that "all of us will see an odd shower over the next few days."