EU referendum: Foyle likely to be among earliest UK constituencies to declare

The Northern Ireland vote will be counted in a similar fashion to a general election, with count staff at eight venues across the Province.

Results will be published on a constituency by constituency basis, allowing analysis of how each area has voted.

There is not expected to be any exit poll by the broadcasters on Thursday evening.

The Electoral Office anticipates that Foyle will be one of the very first of the 650 UK constituencies to declare.

That is partly because of the proximity of the polling stations to the count centre, the fact that the Foyle Arena is large, so can accommodate a large number of count staff, and the decision to use all the staff to count Foyle before East Londonderry – whose polling stations are further away, so take longer to reach the centre.

The last Northern Ireland constituency to declare is expected to be Mid Ulster at about 4am.

Meanwhile, announcements in the Belfast count centre will be competing with a live rock concert across the road when counting gets under way on Thursday night.

The count will be held in the Titanic Exhibition Centre – a prefrabricated building with limited soundproofing – while just across Queen’s Road the Belsonic music festival will be concluding for the evening with indie rock band Foals scheduled to play until 10.50pm.