Even in West Tyrone Brid Rodgers only lost 900 votes to Pat Doherty. Doherty got 4,000 new votes. This pattern was repeated across the north, not just in rural areas. So, in North Belfast the SDLP's vote didn't move but SF's went up by 2,000. What you're looking at is a generational change in nationalism.
Young voters think it's time to pass the baton.
Gut wrenching as the Sinn Fein victories are for the SDLP, the most obvious effect of Sinn Fein's emergence as the senior nationalist party will be its impact on unionism. It doesn't take a genius to work out that if this trend continues and there are assembly elections in 2003, Martin McGuinness or Bairbre de Brun will be deputy first minister. Their first reaction will be to turn on David Trimble and blame him for getting them into this fix. Disarray in unionism however is nothing new, though that will be the aspect of Sinn Fein's victories the media will concentrate on. In the general astonishment at the voting figures no one seems to have noticed that by returning four Sinn Fein MPs the nationalist electorate has not only endorsed Sinn Fein's position on the agreement but also on policing, demilitarisation and decommissioning.