Sinn Féin's Órfhlaith Begley declared herself a history maker as she became the first woman elected as West Tyrone MP.
The 26-year-old political newcomer comfortably held onto a seat relinquished by party colleague Barry McElduff when he quit amid a furore over a controversial social media post.
The solicitor from Carrickmore in Co Tyrone secured an almost 8,000 majority in the parliamentary by-election, ahead of second placed Democratic Unionist Thomas Buchanan, though Sinn Féin's percentage of the vote did drop from over 50% in last year's general election to 47%.
Abstentionist MP Ms Begley noted that her victory, secured with 16,346 votes, came in the centenary year of the first woman MP elected to Westminster, Constance Markievicz.
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"This is the first female MP for West Tyrone you are looking at". she told cheering supporters inside the count centre in Omagh, among them Sinn Féin President Mary Lou McDonald and Vice President Michelle O'Neill.
"So today we have made history, we are the history makers and we will continue to be".
Mr McElduff resigned as MP for the area in January, ten days after a controversy flared when he posted a video of himself with a Kingsmill-branded loaf of bread on his head on the anniversary of the Kingsmill massacre.
He insisted the video was not an intentional reference to the 1976 sectarian murders of ten Protestant workmen by republican paramilitaries near the Co Armagh village of Kingsmill.
However, he acknowledged it had caused hurt and offence to victims' families.
