Ruth Dudley Edwards

The ‘No’s are sneaking it in Ireland

[Many thanks to Ruth Dudley Edwards, who’ll be covering the Irish referendum for Coffee House over the next few days.  Here’s her first post – Pete Hoskin] 

I haven’t seen so many confusing posters since Beirut in the early 1990s.  They are layered on every lamppost in Dublin.  The Yes lobby’s contributions are pious and vacuous and unwisely have photographs of politicians – an unpopular group at the moment.  ‘Europe.  Let’s be at the heart of it’ urges the Fine Gael offering, which features the EPP-ED cute little logo of stars inside a heart.  ‘Good for Ireland  Good for Europe’ say Fianna Fail. ‘Vote Yes for jobs, the economy and Ireland’s future’ beg the Irish Business and Employers Federation.

The No stuff is much more fun, emanating as it does from innumerable mostly obscure groups many of which hate each other: Sinn Fein (‘People died for your freedom. 

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