AMAZING UPDATE!!
So I cancelled the house insurances and returned items to ikea, viewed other properties and even bid on one. Went to reapply for a higher mortgage in case we needed it. In a last ditch effort we bought the folio information from landdirect.ie and went into our local branch of their mortgage company to say we were going to pull out of sale. They didnt give us any info obviously and to be honest I don't know if it had any sway at all but out of the blue on monday evening we got a call from our solicitor to say the sale was going ahead. Apparently the vendor decided to lodge the funds to clear the residual balance.
To say we were amazed is putting it mildly. We closed this evening. Of course Estate Agents fecked off on their Christmas Holidays early today and the keys were in their office. So we paid a locksmith to get us in. Just didnt care at that stage.
Right upto the last second I didnt know which way it was going to go. We cannot believe our luck. Things just turned around for us out of the blue. Kind of feel bad now for hating so much on the vendors last week (but i was so angry!!). Miracles do happen!!