DRAPIER/AN INSIDER'S GUIDE TO POLITICS: There is not a polity in the Western world where a government can seemingly be rewarded in the opinion polls for losing a second referendum. Except, of course, in our own beloved Republic. The republican party's pre-election rally at Citywest pretended that it never happened or, if it did, it had no electoral or political significance.
The author of the latest referendum, Bertie Ahern, made no mention of the implications in his presidential oration. As the Bertiepool mystery blew up in the wake of the referendum debacle, our eponymous hero couldn't wait to grab the traditional bowl of shamrock and head off for the United States until the din dies down. With the Dáil shut down yet again, let the Opposition protest all they like. They have no platform.
Bertie Ahern, the bishops and John Bruton seemed an unbeatable combination. Yet they were defeated in a midweek poll that excluded tens of thousands of young people.
It is a remarkable commentary on how this supposedly "mono-ethnic, mono-cultural" society has changed. The belt of the crozier is no longer feared and, for most of our people, carries neither authority or conviction.
Many Fianna Fáil voters stayed home rather than shore up their leader's very political referendum. Many of these must be disgusted at the "mono-ethnic, mono-cultural" acquiescence of many of their own party's Oireachtas members who didn't believe a word of it.
These Fianna Fáil TDs and senators held the party line, kept their silence and sat on their hands rather than assist their leader in tying down a sliver of the electorate who hold fervent views on the abortion issue. But none of them had the courage to publicly state their convictions, unlike John Bruton, even if his eve-of-poll interview seemed unnecessarily subversive of his successor.
Michael Noonan deserves more credit than he has received for his vigorous stance in a party where many would hold an opposite view. At least the clarity of Ruairí Quinn's forthright campaigning position was unlikely to be undermined from within.
But it was the women who really mattered in this historic milestone. Liz McManus had a good referendum for the Labour Party. Nora Owen and Frances Fitzgerald were most prominent and effective for Fine Gael. In the new Ireland, whatever David Trimble may think, neither Bertie, the bishops nor Bruton could compete with this trio.
By comparison Mary O'Rourke was unconvincing and left the impression of going through the motions in the name of the party. Mary Coughlan was probably the most persuasive Fianna Fáil advocate. The most ambitious deputy in Dáil Eireann, Mary Hanafin, also played her part in the media but stayed well away from the doors in Dun Laoghaire on the issue.
Unlike Fianna Fáil, the bishops met during the week for a post-mortem. It could not have been a harmonious affair given the pragmatic bargain they had struck to support Bertie's referendum.
How Bertie, Des Hanafin and William Binchy got the bishops on side in the first place remains the unwritten story of Referendum 2002. They must now explain to Dana and Justin Barrett how the Hierarchy never departed from the Catholic theological verities on human life.
There was no public disharmony in the Fianna Fáil camp despite a number of hugely sceptical naysayers, the only verities that matter in the short term being political ones.
Sure Bertie only gave the people what they demanded. It's not his fault if they ended up rejecting the "ingenious" solution crafted by Bertie's latest best friend, Michael McDowell.
It is one of the many ironies of the referendum shambles that McDowell is the bigger loser. As Bill McLaren might say, there will be no cheering down South East way for McDowell's performance. His volte-face on the referendum issue, like that of the Progressive Democrats, will not have gone down well with the PDs' well-heeled liberal voters.
The Attorney's latest mission for his Boss is to tidy up the housekeeping on what one wag in here is calling the aquadrome.
Happily this onerous imposition, devised to facilitate the Taoiseach's early departure to the White House, didn't delay McDowell's own exit to the west coast. It must not have proved so complex after all to get the answers that escaped the Taoiseach.
Meanwhile Paddy Teehan did what all besieged top executives do when the inexplicable can't be explained: reach for your public relations consultant this time in the formidable person of Feargus Finlay.
It has now emerged that it was the Taoiseach who took the memorandum to Cabinet while sending the hapless Jim McDaid into the Dáil to express himself more bewildered than the Opposition concerning how a clutch of Kerrymen won a multi-million pound State contract through a dormant UK shelf company. The matter now goes to the Public Accounts Committee.