“So.” Thus, controversially, began Seamus Heaney’s retelling of Beowulf, the epic poem he translated into modern English, via the fireside cadences of his, and my, native Derry. And so has this election’s epic struggle for the heart of man ended with something greatly surprising, but oddly familiar: a sort of unexpected retread of the EU referendum that feels like it was presented for people who are slow on the uptake. On Brexit, Tories are being praised for reaching the leave voters that Labour could not compel with compromise, with little to no comment on the fact that the Tories reached those same voters with a butcher’s bill of false promises and nativist scaremongering that should freeze the blood. It’s in Northern Ireland, however, that something tantalisingly more like common sense may yet have prevailed.

With a mandate for a Scottish independence vote for the SNP, the north faces a credible prospect of its own unity poll

In a rare reversal of all logic and protocol Northern Ireland, the traditional basket case of British politics, decided to hold its elections in a precinct of reality infinitely more grounded than its cousins across the water, and it’s clear who bore the toughest brunt. For those of us who dream of a kinder, more equitable society, the promise of the DUP’s misfortune has for some years now been a lone, spindly hand working the pump that keeps our hearts going. And on Thursday night those hopes were realised, as the party was given a solid shock to its system, and a jolt of agency returned to the SDLP and the Alliance party like the rush of blood that comes to the legs after one of those toilet trips that takes a couple of sudokus.

What is there to say about Arlene Foster’s leadership that hasn’t already been said about that old lady who painted over that Spanish fresco? The DUP lost its influence over the Tories by trading a willing, if feckless, partner in Theresa May for a reptile like Johnson, a man who’s never met a partner he wouldn’t betray for a partner down the street with a few less mouths to feed. In fact, such language does the DUP altogether too much service. It was, after all, not betrayed. It was bought, and discarded. Arlene Foster was offered a billion pounds to enable a Brexit disaster and she took the money willingly. And she has now presided over a hypershambles of calamities for her own worldview that’s hard to calculate, whether socially, politically or electorally.

The DUP lost its Westminster leader, Nigel Dodds, the scowling, keychain-figure-of-a-basset-hound who was one of its key political strategists. There is no record of Dodds smiling since he is a man who, even at the happiest of times, sports the dismal mien of a period drama underling, so lord knows how he feels about losing his seat to Sinn Féin’s John Finucane.

This is quite probably the most seismic shift of 2019. Belfast North is a seat Dodds has held for 20 years, a heartland of unionism that has never been held by a nationalist in its 135-year history. It’s now held by a republican whose father was murdered by loyalist paramilitaries with the help of state forces, an event that even David Cameron was forced to admit involved “shocking levels of collusion”.

Which brings us to the national question. In July, I wrote that a progressive, united Ireland was more likely than ever due to Foster’s incompetence, and now the north has shifted towards marriage equality and reproductive rights, and has a majority of nationalist MPs – all for the first time in its history. This election also delivered a resounding majority of remain parties, thanks to an election fought away from the fantasyland of false conviction offered across the water and rooted in the real world of direct threats to the Northern Irish way of life, and life in general. People for whom the border is harder to lie about because they themselves lie upon it. With a mandate for a Scottish independence vote now delivered for the SNP, the north now faces a credible prospect of its own unity poll, and perhaps even the first sense that conditions could coalesce to make that long-sung song a political reality.

Local reporters spent most of Friday giving their reports of this bewildering news, during the blink-and-you’ll-miss-them segments the UK typically allots to Northern Ireland’s results. These were uniformly in front of the Titanic Museum, that giant, impressive monument to what was, until election night, the world’s most salutary lesson in Northern Irish hubris. When the Museum Of DUP Utter Self-Annihilation is eventually erected in its place, perhaps they’ll be charging euros on the door.

• Séamas O’Reilly is a writer from Derry. His first book, a memoir about his childhood, entitled Did Ye Hear Mammy Died?, is due to be published next year