'I've been running all my life': Media joins Gerry 'The Monk' Hutch in a chaotic jog as he flees RDS
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"Will you be running again Gerry?" yet another journalist asked, and with that Gerard 'the Monk' Hutch broke into a sprint.
The media, who had followed the frenzy into the count centre, around the count centre, and back out of the count centre, were forced into a jog to keep up with him as he ran out of the RDS gates, down the street before entering a nearby hotel.
All in all, one of the most talked about and controversial candidates spent just 30 minutes in the count centre, not waiting around to hear the eventual result.
From Saturday afternoon as the first counts got underway, there had been mutterings that The Monk might appear in the RDS, causing minor frenzies among the pack of journalists and photographers.
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At one stage on Saturday afternoon when filmmaker Jim Sheridan and his crew — who are making a documentary film on the Dubliner — arrived, it set the media into a full-on fever.
After 10pm, another ripple when a number of his 'team' showed up, sparking a new rumour based on almost nothing to circulate that The Monk may well be planning an appearance before counting finished up for the night at 11pm.
"Come back at 7am," said a dark-haired younger man, with piercing icy blue eyes and a cheeky smile, when asked if he might be arriving at the count centre the following day.
On Sunday morning when counting got back underway at 10am, the word went out that The Monk would only be appearing if he was going to win a seat. Projections that Labour's Marie Sherlock would leapfrog him to take the final seat in Dublin Central put almost entirely to bed any expectation that he might arrive.
However, just before 3pm word began to spread yet again. At 3.02pm the veteran criminal, accompanied by the documentary camera crew, strolled up the long avenue to the Simmons Court Arena.
Stopping briefly for reporters, he said that he believed he'd achieved a large vote because people want to change. He did not elaborate on what that change was and went to make his way into the count centre, being forced to eschew the normal entrance and cut through a gap in the bushes.
When asked by RTÈ crime correspondent Paul Reynolds to comment on a Special Criminal Court case, he said the reporter was "like a dying wasp".
At the entrance to the building, he engaged in an argument with the RTÉ man, saying he had been "paid by the State to ask those questions" and proceeded to lead a media scrum on a merry dance, eventually ending at the barrier of the Dublin Bay North count.
There, he rested for some time, allowing questions from journalists to bounce off him, sometimes deciding to engage with nods or the briefest of replies, other times completely ignoring the questions.
When asked about how his political opponents spoke about him during the campaign, he said: "Best of luck to them, I hope they get stuck in and do the job that needs to be done."
"Great turnout," was the response to the large number of votes he obtained.
"Will you run again, Gerry?" one reported shouted.
"I've been running all my life," he said with a wry smile.
With that, The Monk took off, cocooned inside a wall of security guards who shuffled him across the centre to where the Dublin Central count was taking place.
As the media swarmed around, jostling and tripping in the moving pack, he was directed to Ms Sherlock, the woman who would take the seat ahead of him, where he stopped for a quick chat.
Amid shouting to move back and give people some space, the doughnut of security guards then nudged him back to the exit.
As the circus moved outside, Jim Sheridan pleaded with everyone to take a step back.
But at that stage The Monk had given up on the pantomime.
"Good lads, do what ye's are going to do," he sarcastically said as he moved on, first walking, but then eventually breaking into a jog in a bid to shake off the media.
After it was all over, one journalist remarked: "I felt a bit tacky."