The vote for Sinn Féin: The Meath byelection was "probably the most critical election we have fought in 20 years" according to Sinn Féin's chief negotiator Martin McGuinness, who described the party's increased vote as "an incredible performance".
Despite controversies including the murder of Belfast man Robert McCartney and the Northern Bank raid, Cllr Joe Reilly's share of the vote rose by almost 3 percentage points, from 9.43 per cent in the 2002 general election, to 12.25 per cent.
An "absolutely delighted" Mr McGuinness, who canvassed in Meath seven times in the three-week campaign, said it was the most critical election "simply because of the circumstances under which the election was fought and the fact that there was massive targeting of Sinn Féin by our political opponents and by the media". He said the people of Meath had shown that "they think more of Sinn Féin and Joe Reilly than they do of Michael McDowell and the PDs". The party had shown itself to be "very strong indeed".
The candidate himself said he was "a very happy man. We've both increased the vote and the percentage of the vote". With a turnout of just over 41 per cent, Cllr Reilly got 6,087 first preference votes, compared to 6,042 votes in 2002, when the turnout was almost 60 per cent.
"I think it's going to be a boost for the party and it augurs well for the Westminster elections," said Mr Reilly. Mr McGuinness described it as a "springboard" for further gains in the British general election.
Labour leader Pat Rabbitte said there "is no doubt about it that the Sinn Féin vote has held up well . . . I don't know what that says about us as a people, but I think we have to get used to the fact that there is a sliver of the population out there that are prepared to exercise a protest vote".
Fianna Fáil's director of elections, Noel Dempsey, said "the question that needs to be asked is what it might have been if all of the other things didn't happen".
Referring to the number of Sinn Féin voters who transferred to Fine Gael, Cllr Reilly said: "We are quite strong in north Meath where Shane McEntee comes from and number twos will go to McEntee. North Meath is still a rural area, and it's long felt itself to be excluded from the economic development of the county and so they're fairly clannish in that area. They would support one another, a local north Meath man."