Simon Coveney appeared at the count centre to cheers. He came a little late, but why not, when all he was hearing throughout the day was good news?
The message the 26-year-old had been getting was that his campaign had been successful.
And although he was saying it was premature to call him a TD before the formal announcement, the demeanour of the other candidates, and the tallies from the opened ballot boxes, suggested that his supporters' optimism was well founded.
When he arrived, long before the first count was called, even members of the Opposition parties applauded his entrance. His mother, Pauline, who shunned the limelight, has been through a difficult three weeks of campaigning. Throughout it, she had been reminded constantly of why her son was fighting the seat in the first place. Of how her husband, Hugh, died on an evening last March when she was awaiting his return home to take her to a restaurant.
Simon is the second of the seven Coveney children. He is unmarried and lives at home on the 250-acre family farm at Minane Bridge, Co Cork.
He was educated at Clongowes Wood College, University College Cork, the Gurteen Agricultural College and the Royal Agricultural College, in Gloucestershire, and has worked as a land management adviser in Edinburgh and as a farm manager in Mallow, Co Cork.
Mr Coveney is a first-class yachtsman and sailing instructor. He skippered the family yacht, Golden Apple, on a round-the-world voyage aimed at raising £1 million for the Chernobyl children's project in Cork.
He has played rugby for Ireland at college level and has captained college teams. While studying in Britain he became the first Irishman to lead an English rugby team on a tour of Zimbabwe.
He has also played rugby for Garryowen, in Limerick, and Cork Constitution. Of his election last Saturday, he said: "That's one hurdle over. I think it's only starting".