Praying for salvation on the Day of Reckoning

THE general election count is a lot like Judgment Day. The good are rewarded for their goodness and the bad (often defined as "those who have not worked the constituency") are cast into outer darkness (sometimes called "the Seanad").

Of course, there are many who are neither saved nor damned. Some of these are condemned to the purgatory of thinking that five more years of hard work could make all the difference. Others, disillusioned by the brutality of the Old Testament system, turn to eastern wisdom instead - which teaches them to conquer all desire to become a public representative. This is the state known as Nirvana.

Dublin's RDS on Saturday had enough bloody ritual to satisfy any Bible thumping fundamentalist. The returning officer - God to the suffering candidates - pronounced his judgments from the middle of the cavernous hall. Winners were hoisted shoulder high. Trumpets sounded (the campaign directors explaining why they'd won). Then righteous TDs ascended the rostrum at the end of the hall to be bathed in the celestial light of the RTE cameras, before joining the angels for all eternity (five years is a long time in politics).

In the midst of this court drama, two particular judgments were being played out. To the right of the returning officer, appropriately, Mr Michael McDowell fought for electoral salvation. To the left, so did Mr Proinsias De Rossa.

Early in the afternoon, Mr De Rossa had arrived at the RDS and had a long, hard look at the board for Dublin North West. The writing was on the wall, literally and metaphorically, but Mr De Rossa seemed to be reading between the lines. He told anybody who asked he could still make it. His face, as grim as at any time during his libel case against the Sunday Independent, suggested otherwise.

Curiously, the legal team that represented him was also in the hall, but on the other side of the divide. Mr Adrian Hardiman and Mr Paul O'Higgins were part of a protective cordon of senior counsel that surrounded their wounded colleague, Mr McDowell, throughout the long night.

Even Ms Maire Kirrane National Party candidate and barrister, was affected by the herd instinct. She was plainly annoyed that "Quinn" (Labour's Ruairi) had taken 68 of her preferences but was equally delighted that - as she claimed - her votes had helped save her Law Library colleague.

She was a little premature. For most of the day, the Dail Rottweiler didn't seem to have a pup's chance. Although gracious under pressure, the normally loquacious Mr McDowell had become a man of few words as night wore into morning. Then a huge transfer from Fianna Fail's Mr Eoin Ryan swept him past the Greens' Mr John Gormley. There were no cheers, no trumpet blasts, but at 1 a.m. Mr McDowell appeared to have joined the ranks of the saved.

Across the hall, Mr De Rossa was still among the damned in waiting. The Democratic Left support team talked of a chance if the two Fine Gael candidates were eliminated in the right order, but words like "dodgy" could be heard in muffled conversations into mobile phones. When Mr Eric Byrne crossed the floor around midnight to offer support to his leader, Mr De Rossa inquired how he was doing and summed up: "I'm in with a small chance myself." There were of course other stories unfolding around the floor. Among all the lip biting politicians, the most expressive face in the hall belonged to the diminutive mother of Labour's Mr Derek McDowell when at 1.20 a.m. a cheer announced the election of her son after a dogfight with Mr Sean Dublin Bay Rockall Loftus. The defeated Independent, looking as lonesome as Rockall itself, looked on as the relieved Labour contingent moved out of the arena.

Mr Tony Gregory was a another winner, and was doing lot of weary smiling as interviewer after interviewer asked him about Gregory deals. The leader of the Natural Law Party, Mr Tom Mullins, wandered around, reflecting on another election in which the Irish people had passed up the option of a shift in consciousness. He took the inevitable jokes about yogic flying in good spirit but looked anything but buoyant (oops).

It was 3.15 a.m. when the count of Ms Mary Flaherty's transfers began to suggest redemption for Mr De Rossa. The transformation of the DL camp was Lazaruslike. Slumped shoulders straightened and the candidate's wan smile broadened for the first time all day.

Across the hall in the McDowell camp, however, all was changed. The legal contingent looked like a prosecution team digesting a not guilty verdict in a mass murder case. The vagaries of the transfer system, which had thrown a line to the drowning Mr De Rossa, had engulfed Mr McDowell.

It was almost 4 a.m. There was weeping and gnashing of teeth.