It was 4.30 on Monday morning when Charlie McConalogue was re-elected to Dáil Éireann, after two days of tension-filled drama in the Donegal count centre in Letterkenny.

From the early stages, it was clear that the final two seats rested between the outgoing agriculture minister, independent TD Thomas Pringle and 100% Redress (mica) candidate Charles Ward.

Pringle was the one to lose out, with McConalogue benefitting form a massive transfer from Fine Gael candidate Nikki Bradley. Strong transfers between the two main government parties were a theme at count centres right across the country.

Martin Heydon had a much more comfortable re-election, topping the poll in Kildare south and always looking safe.

Pippa Hackett, having finished sixth in a five-seat Laois-Offaly constituency last time out, was always up against it in the new three-seat Offaly constituency, and never really featured as the tide went strongly against the Green Party.

Sinn Féin’s spokesperson on agriculture Martin Kenny comfortably held his seat in Sligo-Leitrim, as did his predecessors Claire Kerrane (Roscommon-Galway) and Matt Carthy (Cavan-Monaghan), where former agriculture minister Brendan Smith was returned for an eighth successive term.