December 2007

It started with a press conference without much of the press. Buswell's Hotel, 12 December 2007. That is the date in history to which the first activity in the campaign can be traced. The Labour party wanted to tell the media about the charter for fundamental rights that would be included in Lisbon. Clear the front page.

RTÉ didn't turn up. Neither did the national press. There were a few radio reporters present, having shot over from Leinster House, on a day that was only fair to middling for news. But give credit where it was due. The topic was worthy. Labour was on the job.

The following day, all eyes turned to Lisbon, as in the city that begat the treaty that begat the referendum. Twenty-seven leaders, good and true, stood and signed the new accord. Trumpets blew, flags waved. In their midst stood Bertie Ahern, once more straddling the European stage, once more awaiting another trip to Dublin Castle to tell his tales of ordinary madness.

On the same day in Merrion Square, Declan Ganley was announcing his arrival on the national stage. His group, Libertas, launched a poster campaign to mark the occasion.

The answer is no, says he.

"This is profoundly undemocratic and signing this treaty is like signing a blank cheque." He was described as the president of Libertas and was accompanied by a man with the title "executive director". The uninformed might have been led to believe Libertas was a large organisation. Those more tuned in suggested it was a one-man band, a plaything for rich man Ganley to keep boredom at bay. Ganley pledged to fundraise for his campaign, a subject that would attract much ink over the following months.

Within a week of Ganley's introduction to the people of Ireland, Ahern was back in Dublin Castle, engaged in what would become a drag on his leadership through the last months of its tenure. Happy Christmas.

January 2008

January dawned hopeful for all involved. On the 7th, Bertie gave a statement on the treaty, but in keeping with his form, declined to name a date. The following month he named Dermot Ahern and Brian Cowen as joint directors of election. By then, he was sauntering back into the arms of Alan Mahon in the castle.

February saw stirrings elsewhere. In the middle of the month a private meeting took place in Cork. An organisation called Cóir was taking soundings among kindred spirits. Cóir was formed in the wake of the Nice referendum campaign to keep the godless hordes offshore. Now the battle was to be joined again.

Cork was the first of 15 or so private meetings held around the country over the following month to rally the troops. The forthcoming crusade against abortion, euthanasia and the legalisation of drugs and prostitution, all allegedly hidden in Lisbon's detail, got underway. According to Cóir spokesman Richard Greene, the group pulled together 2,000 volunteers from a variety of interested parties. Cóir shares an office with Youth Defence. Greene insists Cóir is a separate organisation.

The only government figure talking about Lisbon at the time was Dick Roche, the relevant minister. A Dick Roche speech on Europe quickly became a treasured sedative among insomniacs.

March 2008

By March, the antis were motoring on a pincer movement. From the left, the Shinners and the umbrella group, Campaign Against EU Constitution, began holding public meetings. Fear was the key. The few members of the public who bothered to turn up were told Lisbon was a charter for big business and would lead to privatisiation of services and could affect Ireland's neutrality.

Coir were preaching the evils of abortion which somebody has seen between the lines of the treaty. On billboards, the airwaves and in print, Ganley came at it from another angle. The veto on tax would go. Inward investment would dry up. Ireland was heading to hell in a handbasket. He was doing this for his country.

In March, Ganley threw his money at posters attacking politicians of the main parties in their own constituencies. Roche hit back at him.

"The decision by Libertas to take out personal billboards attacking politicians in their own Dáil constituencies is a new low in Irish referenda campaigns and this is a very regrettable tactic," Roche said. "The tactic is very odd behaviour for an organisation that proclaimed that the referendum vote should be 'about the contents of the treaty' and not about personalities." The few people still awake at the end of his statement nodded off in agreement.

Fine Gael kept the homefires burning on the Yes side. On 27 March, it held its first public meeting on the treaty in the Regency Hotel in Drumcondra.

At this stage, the party was already fighting the negative spin and propagating its own. "Europe, let's be at the heart of it." A brilliant line, open to whatever interpretation you wanted to put on it.

Over the rest of the campaign Fine Gael would hold some 60 public meetings.

Meanwhile, the walls were tumbling down around. Bertie. His tribunal woes mushroomed into crisis when one lodgement too many led to problems with his former secretary.

April 2008

On 2 April, he said he was quitting. A month of long goodbyes followed, and then there was the coronation of Brian Cowen.

The new Taoiseach stepped down from his coveted role of co-director of elections, to be replaced by Micheál Martin. As the hoopla over the succession ensued, Lisbon slipped back. It was as if the main parties didn't have the stomach for selling a treaty nobody really understood, and all the Bertie stuff was a welcome distraction.

By now, a pattern was forming. The No side, dubbed the no-hopers, were quietly making inroads, spreading fear by explaining to the public something that apparently nobody had read. Being a raggle taggle, broad-based bunch was a help rather than a hindrance. Ganley plugged into the libertarian element in the middle classes. The left-wing groups hammered away at privatisation and a loss of workers' rights. And Cóir conjured up a future of stoned hookers, trawling the streets, advertising abortion and euthanasia services in an unregulated market. Welded to the ingrained anti-establishment stain in Irish society, the various elements were attracting legions to their standard.

The Yes side had their own tactic. Be afraid, be very afraid. Garret FitzGerald intimated that people would be mad to vote no. Be afraid or be mad. Get with the programme, peasants.

April brought showers of news. Proinsias De Rossa was assaulted outside a public meeting on the treaty on the 15th. Youtube footage suggested it wasn't exactly handbags at dawn, but it didn't look good. A week later a leaked memo showed officials in Brussels had resolved to hold back on bad news until after the Irish referendum.

An opinion poll towards the end of the month suggested the referendum was now in play. Up until then, the Yes side had had a 2:1 majority. The new poll showed the Yesses ahead by only 6%. The call went up. It was time to mobilise.

May/June 2008

Imagination was still a problem for the Yes side. The main parties put up posters of leaders and local politicians smiling brightly, telling us what was good for us. The widespread use of the opportunity as a dry run for next year's local and Euro elections wasn't lost on anybody.

By contrast, Cóir's monkeys caught the eye. The new EU won't see, hear or speak to you. They also used the 1916 proclamation to imply we were giving away freedoms for which others had died.

Around about then, Dick Roche went into hiding. The Yes side began to wake up. Farmers were sniffing around the trough. What's in it for us? Eventually, Cowen convinced them he would bring EU commissioner Peter Mandelson to heel over the world trade talks. IFA president Padraig Walshe told the faithful they could vote yes with a clear conscious.

The bishops came onside, declaring Lisbon had no implications for abortion. And then Ictu gave Cowen the nod. Yes, yes, yes!

Cowen and Eamon Gilmore came together to canvass the retail cathedral, Dundrum shopping centre. Garrett Fitzgerald went down the country to plod the streets with Biffo. Political differences were set aside in the alleged national interest.

A further boost to the Yes side was the introduction to the debate of Jim Corr. He said he was voting no because, among other things, Lisbon could force the death penalty on us.

The kernel of the matter was best illustrated in a press briefing on 5 June from the Referendum Commission, charged with explaining complicated stuff to the masses. Chairman Iarlaith O'Neill got tongue-tied and twisted over a detailed question. He replied to the smarty pants hack as follows: "As your question necessarily points up or implies, it's quite difficult to be precise about what that means. There certainly isn't a precision about it whereby one could say it applies to A, B, C or D." Right you are, boss.

The sixth of June dawned grey for Cowen. An Irish Times poll was putting the No side ahead. An apocalyptic landscape beckoned. Could this be happening?

He put in a savage final week on the airways, toning down the aggression, emphasising his analytical powers, sometimes even refraining from jargon. Enda Kenny balanced things out by appearing on Q&A and putting in a shocking performance. It was as if fate's own Referendum Commission was giving each side an equal opportunity to cock it up.

Meanwhile, just 36 hours before media blackout, the real experts were talking to Joe. Liveline wanted to see whom the people would trust if not their politicians. They came up with Maeve Binchy, Ben Dunne, Sinéad O'Connor and DJ Carey.

These tribunes of the plain people let us know where they stood. It was a fitting finale to a jagged six months. We'll not see its likes again.

Unless, of course, the hookers on hard drugs arrive on these shores with their implements of terror.