Westmeath won their first ever title at senior level, leaving Wicklow and Fermanagh as the only other counties yet to achieve this.

[2] They went into the 2004 Leinster SFC bidding to win their first ever title at senior level, with the only other counties still to achieve this being Wicklow and Fermanagh.

[4] Commentators hailed Westmeath's win as monumental, with the Irish Independent's Eamonn Sweeney, 'Richard Stakelum famously greeted Tipperary's first Munster title in sixteen years with the words, "The famine is over."

What Westmeath have endured makes the famine of other counties look more like minor spells of peckishness.

'[3] Colm O'Rourke said it was "one of the greatest days ever in Croke Park and must have given rise to the biggest street party ever in [the Westmeath capital] Mullingar last night".