The Catholic IRA guerillas' political ally and Ian Paisley's hardline Protestant party have both gained ground on their moderate rivals in Northern Ireland's assembly election, an exit poll showed on Thursday.

In what amounted to two parallel ballots, IRA ally Sinn Fein gained 20 percent of first preference votes versus 16 percent for the moderate Catholic SDLP party, Irish state broadcaster RTE said a poll of 1,500 voters had shown.

The survey, conducted by Belfast-based firm Millward Brown Ulster, also showed that among pro-British Protestant voters, Paisley's Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) had caught up from the last election on the more moderate Ulster Unionist Party (UUP), with both running at 25 percent.

RTE warned that the exit poll, the only one carried out during Wednesday's ballot, may not accurately reflect final results. Counting began on Thursday and ends late on Friday.

But if translated into a final result, that tally would make it tough to quickly revive Northern Ireland's power-sharing assembly as Paisley has refused to work with Sinn Fein and is demanding a re-negotiation of the U.S.-brokered 1998 Good Friday peace pact under which it was set up.

London and Dublin had backed moderate parties in the much-delayed election, hoping they would hold sway with a clear mandate for talks to revive the assembly.

The home rule legislature was suspended a year ago as allegations of an IRA spying ring shattered the province's political truce.

The UUP and SDLP had led the assembly after a 1998 poll. Their leaders shared a Nobel peace prize for the Good Friday pact.

As well as the exit poll, Belfast bookmakers also put Sinn Fein ahead after a vigorous election campaign by leaders Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness.

But the bookmakers also predicted final results, which take two days due to Northern Ireland's complex proportional representation system, would see the DUP overhaul the UUP.

The 1998 agreement ended the worst of three decades of bloodshed in which 3,600 people died as the IRA fought to end British rule. But it ushered in a new era of political quarrelling and low-level violence has continued.

In a reminder of that, police said youths had rioted at a polling station in Northern Ireland's second city, Londonderry, hurling 50 petrol bombs as well as stones and fireworks.

No one was injured but the station was damaged and election officials needed a police escort out after the riot erupted near the end of polling late on Wednesday.

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