It suddenly occurred to me a few minutes ago that I could listen live to the drama of the Irish general election exit poll reveal on RTE Radio, and although there wasn't a huge shock, there was a slight surprise, because Sinn Féin are predicted to top the first preference vote for a second time in a row - albeit that prediction is within the margin of error, because Sinn Féin are just 0.1% ahead of Fine Gael, with Fianna Fáil around 1.5% further back in third.
Bear in mind that Sinn Féin are a bit less transfer-friendly than the other two main parties, so even a slight lead in the popular vote may translate into them being slightly behind in terms of seats. But at the very least it looks like they'll retain rough parity with the traditional big two.
For most of the last five years, Sinn Féin have had a healthy lead in the polls, and some Scottish independence supporters have looked at that as a back door route by which we might make progress - ie. a Sinn Féin led government might take office in the Republic and demand an early referendum on Irish unity. That prospect fell away a few months ago when Sinn Féin support dramatically collapsed and they fell to a poor third place. I'm not sure why that happened - maybe they overplayed their hand on identity politics and lost touch with what voters were really looking for from them. But they've since rallied, and ended up with a middling result which is unlikely to get them into power right now, but will rescue their credibility and keep the flame burning for future years.