The DUP's Peter Weir was one of the big name casualties who lost his seat earlier.

The former education minister tells the BBC he is disappointed.

"I think it does show the level of anger amongst unionists particularly in terms of the protocol.

"There was a large vote for the TUV in Strangford and that meant I wasn't able to retain my seat," he says.

Did the DUP miscalculate by running too many candidates in the area?

Mr Weir says not: "We had three seats and if it wasn't for the protocol we would have retained them."

Predictions of a DUP "meltdown" in the media, however, he says are wrong and the party has strong support still.

"The protocol is the poison at the heart and we need to get that sorted out. It isn't working for Northern Ireland," he adds.

Harry Harvey takes the second DUP seat in Strangford after being elected on the sixth count, joining Michelle McIlveen.

He first entered the assembly in 2019, replacing former Economy Minister Simon Hamilton.

Image source, Laura Trueman/BBC

Rosemary Barton of the UUP has been excluded during the third count in Fermanagh and South Tyrone.

No other candidate has reached the quota.

The count has been suspended and will restart tomorrow morning.

Grainne Connolly
BBC News NI

The Ulster Unionist Party’s Steve Aiken has retained his seat in South Antrim.The former leader of his party is the third to be elected in the constituency.Mr Aiken was first elected to the assembly in 2016.

Two Alliance candidates have been elected in East Antrim in the fifth count.

Stewart Dickson is back again in a seat he has held since 2011.

He will be joined on the benches by his running mate Danny Donnelly, who has gained a seat in the constituency.

Dolores Kelly has failed to win her seat back in Upper Bann after being eliminated in stage three.

She was first elected in 2003, before losing her seat in 2016 and regaining it in the 2017 election.

No other candidates in Upper Bann have reached the quota.

It would have been expected that Joanne Bunting's transfers would have got fellow DUP candidate, David Brooks, over the line in Belfast East.

However, thanks to the quirks of the single transferable vote system, external, her transfers are equal to zero.

It's thought that this is the first time this has ever happened in the assembly elections.

Celebrations as the Alliance Party's Andrew Muir is elected in North Down.

TUV leader Jim Allister is feeling confident just 14 votes short of the quota for North Antrim.

He says the TUV's vote in the constituency has increased by 33% and his is the only unionist party that has increased its vote.

"When your party grows by the extent that it has then there are many positives to be taken from today," he says.

"I speak for 65,000 people in this province who gave their first preference votes to the TUV and our mandate is there," he says.

What does he think of the broader picture - with a surge in the centre ground and Alliance's success?

He says in one sense Alliance is in agreement with him because "they have claimed they wish to move away from mandatory coalition which I have railed against from day one".

Election nerds - a bit of number crunching from political pundit David McCann for you now.

"While Sinn Féin has got a strong result, the nationalist designation is likely to be two seats down on what it went in with.

"If you think about the decline of the SDLP, probably losing about three or four seats, we are only really talking about maybe Sinn Féin picking up one so that would be a net loss of two or three seats - so the nationalist designation isn't moving forward - rather the 'other' designation is rising.

"Although that's also been blunted slightly too as we are talking about the potential two Alliance gains coming at the expense of the Green Party, which is great for Alliance, but I would say they would have preferred having two other Greens there it adds to that 'other' designation and adds to their argument for reform.

"Looking a the combined votes of the TUV, the UUP and DUP it comes to just over 40% and by 2017, it was at 43.6% - so the combined vote of the main unionist parties, not including unionist independents, Claire Sugden and Alex Easton is down a couple of points."

The DUP's Michelle McIlveen has been elected at stage five in Strangford.

But former DUP education minister Peter Weir has lost his seat in the constituency.

He received 3,313 first preference votes, falling well below the quota of 6,811.

There were big cheers for the DUP’s Gordon Lyons as he was elected for East Antrim on stage four of the count.

Mr Lyons was appointed Stormont economy minister last July, taking over from his party colleague Paul Frew.

Mr Lyons is the second to be elected in the constituency after the UUP’s John Stewart who topped the poll.

Asked about the DUP's focus on the Northern Ireland Protocol, Sinn Féin president Mary Lou McDonald says the DUP need to look at its role in bringing it about.

"The DUP, if they believe that this protocol is so calamitous to their interests, they need to ask themselves the hard questions about Brexit, and why they were cheerleaders for that and the hardest possible version of Brexi," she says.

The DUP voted against earlier Brexit agreements proposed by then Prime Minister Theresa May while it was supporting her Conservative government.

It ultimately also voted against Boris Johnson's Brexit deal, which included the protocol.

"The protocol is ungainly, it’s bespoke, it is not a thing of beauty, but it is a necessity, a technical and legal necessity to keep the all-Ireland economy going," Ms McDonald says.

"To keep the lights on on the island, and to ensure there are some protections to the Good Friday Agreement."

"I feel like a parrot, I’ve said this so many times."

The Alliance Party’s Sorcha Eastwood and the DUP’s Paul Givan have both been elected on stage four of the count for Lagan Valley.

Ms Eastwood has served on Lisburn and Castlereagh City Council since 2019.

Mr Givan became Northern Ireland’s youngest first minister last June after Arlene Foster was ousted.

But he resigned in February this year as part of his party’s protest against the Northern Ireland protocol.

Tracking the results over time shows the drop off in DUP support in recent elections and the rise of Sinn Féin and Alliance.

The UUP and SDLP have declined over a longer period.

Senior Orangeman Mervyn Gibson says unionist parties are not focused on stopping Sinn Féin from taking the first minister's role.

There has been speculation that opposition from the DUP to returning to the executive is not just because of the Northern Ireland Protocol, but also because of the possibility Sinn Féin could return as the largest party.

"It has always been about the protocol," the Orange Order's grand secretary tells Radio Ulster.

"Certainly I would prefer that a nationalist wouldn’t be the first minister. What has driven me in this election is the protocol.

"Those tactics don’t work with people anymore. If there is a first minister from Sinn Féin, it is because unionists didn’t come out and vote.

"There has been apathy on the ground, apathy in our communities. I think we have managed to combat that in recent weeks. The TUV have increased their vote quite significantly."

Chris Page
BBC News Ireland correspondent

Sinn Féin has polled the largest number of first preference votes in the Northern Ireland Assembly election by a long way.

The first stage of the count is complete in all eighteen constituencies.

More than a quarter of a million people gave their “1” vote to the republican party.

Sinn Féin won 29% of the first preference vote - with the Democratic Unionists receiving 21.3 %.

Sinn Féin increased its share by just over 1% - while the DUP has seen a drop of almost 7%.

A fall in the SDLP vote - from 12% to 9% - suggests nationalist voters may have rallied around Sinn Féin.

A factor in this may be that pre-election polls suggested Sinn Féin could deliver a nationalist first minister for the first time.

The DUP seems to have taken a hit, not from the more moderate Ulster Unionist Party, but from the Traditional Unionist Voice, which takes a more hardline position.

The TUV has seen its vote share almost quadruple - to 7.6% - while the UUP is down 1.7%.

The final result will depend on the 2s, 3s 4s and beyond on the ballot paper.

It’s a complicated process, and counting is now expected to pause overnight and resume tomorrow.

Most analysts believe Sinn Féin is on course to win the largest number of seats.

With a drop of nearly two percentage points in first preference vote share and doubts over party leader Doug Beattie holding his seat, it has been a challenging election so far for the Ulster Unionist Party.

The party's chairman and former deputy leader Danny Kennedy tells Radio Ulster there had been a "perception that we were somehow weaker on the protocol".

"In fact, we had provided all of the warnings in advance of what happened eventually and the betrayal of [Boris] Johnson to the DUP," he said.

He said the party's analysis had been right, but that "our presentation lacked something in making sure that voters were aware of our opposition to the protocol".