They may have turned around one of the highest No to Lisbon votes in the country last year into a resounding Yes to Lisbon 2 yesterday. But if the good people of Mayo were waiting with bated breath to know the outcome of Friday's poll – 62% voted Yes – a visitor to the near empty count centre in Castlebar yesterday would have been hard pushed to tell.

Apart from the official vote counters, by lunchtime, this reporter registered just 20 people in a room with a capacity of around 2,500.

This included one bored looking member of An Garda Siochana, several members of the media, and assorted tallymen and party officials. But it excluded members of the hotel's staff working behind the bar.

The room was not without its political heavyweights, however.

By far the biggest beast in this particular political jungle was Fine Gael leader – and father of the Dáil as its longest serving member – Enda Kenny TD.

Although due to appear at the national count centre in Dublin Castle later that day, the man seen by some as a Taoiseach in waiting did not get this far by forgetting his local base.

Perhaps mindful too of the embarrassment of the June 2008 poll results in his own constituency, Kenny was in attendance from early yesterday morning.

By 10am, he could be seen scrutinising the various tallies as they came in, chatting to party officials and speaking to local media.

Expressing satisfaction with the expected outcome, he told the Sunday Tribune that he believed voters had listened to appeals from himself and his party to "hold their fire" by choosing not to use the poll as an opportunity to register their frustration with current government.

Going through the various tallies as he spoke, he believed the Yes side had "absolutely" learned from the last referendum campaign.

"I think we ran a much more focused campaign which dealt with the problems identified by people last time around," he said.

Less than an hour later and he was gone. So it was left to other local bigwigs, such as Fianna Fáil junior minister Dara Calleary TD, to provide reaction from the Yes side.

The TD said that during the past four weeks of the campaign, he had encountered pockets of No
voters, particularly in the county's fishing community, but he was happy that people had made up their own minds on the issues affecting them.

Local Sinn Féin councillor Thérèse Ruane – a sister of the Northern education minister Caitriona Ruane – said the party would respect the will of the people, after what was a difficult and frustrating campaign.

But she reiterated her lack of faith in the legal guarantees provided this time around.

"I hope I'm wrong for the sake of the Irish people," she said.