Newtownards: "As long as I'm standing, there will be an Ulster Unionist Party," said Lady Sylvia Hermon after retaining her party's only Westminster seat by just under 5,000 votes in the North Down constituency.
When she said it was "nice to wipe the smile off Mr Paisley and Mr Robinson's face", DUP supporters retorted "what about your leader?".
"One seat is a wonderful victory," she replied.
The heckling exchanges at the count in the Ards Leisure Centre reflected the tension between the two parties, created by electoral battles over the years in this mainly middle-class and overwhelmingly unionist constituency.
After the count Hermon said she was deeply disappointed by the party's overall result at Westminster.
She had spoken earlier in the day to party leader David Trimble when they thought he might retain his seat and at least one other, but "then to hear the outcome later, without warning - it was bleak".
Asked if she would run for the leadership of the party as its only remaining MP, she said: "Well they haven't had a woman leader but I don't think there's a vacancy."
Her victory was arrived at with the tactical voting of Alliance Party supporters. She garnered a total of 16,268 votes to 11,324 for the DUP's Peter Weir, a former UUP member who switched parties in 2001.
Weir said to huge DUP cheers that "if this is a glorious victory for the UUP, I would hate to see a day when they were suffering a defeat".
In the neighbouring Strangford constituency the DUP's Iris Robinson recorded a significant 20,921 votes from a total turnout of 37,122.
Gareth McGimpsey, her UUP opponent and son of MLA Michael McGimpsey, took 7,872 votes.
Robinson said that "unlike Sylvia Hermon, I hope I can be gracious to my opponents".
She said: "The DUP's day has come and it's not before time."
The DUP had shown the electorate that it stuck by its election pledges and could be trusted, she said.
"The British, Irish and American governments better take note that the DUP speaks for the Unionist community and they will have to recognise our mandate."
In 2001 Hermon became an MP for the first time, helped by the withdrawal of the Alliance Party.
That year, the DUP stood aside for Robert McCartney of the UK Unionist party.
This time around the UK Unionist Party stood aside for the DUP and the Alliance ran a candidate, but supporters still plumped for the UUP.
Alliance candidate David Alderdice said that while the party's vote would hold up in the local elections "the more negative situation in the Westminster election is that people were scared or fearful of letting the DUP in and decided to vote tactically. It is a vote lent to the UUP by the Alliance party".
The turnout was 54.7 per cent, down from 59 per cent in the 2001 election.
