With a seat added and Michael Ring retiring, everyone knew there would be at least one new face heading to Leinster House to represent Mayo in the 34th Dáil.

Our Ox Mountain hills are small compared to the Swiss Alps but believe it or not, there is a connection.

In the pause after the election campaign concluded and the last seat was filled, politicians and public drew a collective breath. Assessments included 'Not very memorable' and 'Much ado about very little'.

A word this week for readers who live away from home. You could be in New York or Nottingham, New Zealand or Nice, or indeed in any part of the world. There is one of us everywhere these days.

When I was young, we always referred to the stoat as a weasel. Of course, there are no weasels in the Ox Mountain region, nor are there any in the whole of Ireland.

In an age where we worship at the altar of precocious youth, where Mark Zuckerberg's catastrophically myopic declaration in 2007 that "young people are just smarter" passes for wisdom, there's something deliciously subversive about the late bloomer.

I take my election duties seriously.

It was 2020, during the height of the ‘Black Lives Matter’ protests, when TV host, Trevor Noah, finished his Daily Show comedy programme with a clip from a city whose name I forget.

Never have there been as many strong, capable female candidates in Mayo as in this election. At various stages of the campaign, each of the four women in the field were tipped to take seats and in the end, the performance of two of them was historic.

After arriving home from Castlebar on Sunday night, I felt compelled to write a few lines on an eventful weekend.