Michael D Higgins declared president of Ireland after late drama

The first official count gave Mr Higgins 40 per cent of the vote. The resounding victory – 701,101 votes out of 1.77 million – was secured with a tidal wave of 11th hour support for the 70-year-old from Galway after controversy over his biggest rival’s political fundraising past.

Mr Higgins, a former government minister, came from 15 points behind in the opinion polls last weekend to seal his victory, with all other candidates conceding defeat.

Amid hectic scenes at the National Count Centre in Dublin Castle, president-elect Mr Higgins said his term in office would be about inclusion, ideas and transformation.

“I feel a little overwhelmed,” he said. “I’m very, very happy. It is something I prepared for, something I thought about for a long while. I am very glad as well that it is a presidency built on a campaign that emphasised ideas. I hope it will be a presidency that will enable everybody to be part of and proud of.”

Mr Gallagher had conceded defeat to the human rights activist, poet and former TD for Galway West, ahead of the final result. In a statement released yesterday, Mr Gallagher said: “He [Mr Higgins] will have my full support as president and I sincerely thank him for a positive campaign.”

The turnaround in both men’s fortunes during the campaign’s final days was remarkable: only last weekend Mr Gallagher held a 14-point poll lead over the new president-elect.

Mr Gallagher’s prospects took a fatal nosedive during a live presidential debate on Irish television on Monday. In front of a watching audience of hundreds of thousands, fellow candidate Martin McGuinness, who was running third in the poll, accused the businessman and erstwhile member of Fianna Fail’s national executive of receiving a €5,000 (£4,400) donation for the party from a convicted fuel smuggler in 2008.

Mr Gallagher denied the allegations, but his defence was unconvincing and appears to have cost him at the ballot box.

A survey published yesterday suggested that Mr Higgins made massive gains in the wake of the controversy. About 38 per cent of those polled said they had decided whom to support only following that TV debate. Some 28 per cent switched support in the past week – and 58 per cent of those dumped Mr Gallagher.

Senator David Norris was the first of the seven candidates to offer congratulations.

“I’m quite certain the next president will be Michael D Higgins and I’d like to send my love and congratulations to Michael D, to Sabina and the rest of the family,” he said yesterday afternoon. “It’s a good day for Ireland because, although he is a Labour Party member, Michael D, like myself, is a little bit of a maverick and when you have such a concentration of power in the hands of the coalition I think it’s good to have somebody who will be in a position morally and intellectually to speak out on behalf of the marginalised.”

A former lecturer in sociology and politics at University College Galway, Mr Higgins, benefited from his standing as one of Ireland’s most liked and instantly recognisable politicians. During an often bad-tempered campaign, Higgins stayed above the fray and his record on human rights, in particular, won plenty of admirers. The next president is also one of Ireland’s strongest critics of US foreign policy.

Two independents at the bottom of the polls, Mary Davis, who headed the Irish division of Special Olympics, and Dana Rosemary Scallon, former Eurovision winner, were excluded on the first count.