The contrast could not have been clearer between the Falls and Shankill Roads in Belfast yesterday. Voters on the Shankill were being barraged with conflicting messages from rival loudspeakers, while their neighbours on the Falls were left to do as they pleased, with hardly a poster or politician in sight.
The Shankill was an obvious battleground. A Progressive Unionist Party car went up and down the road playing music and calling for a Yes vote. "Don't let Paisley wipe your eye," was the message from the Ulster Democratic Party's posters. Pop music blared from the open door of its office as party activists manned an information desk and caravan outside. Leaflets urged people to "vote Yes for the future".
The loyalist parties appeared to be adopting the tactics usually associated with Sinn Fein. A UDP worker was hoping that 32 pensioners they were ferrying from sheltered accommodation would not prove to be No voters. But they were not the only ones circling the area. A minibus from the "Jesus Saves Mission Church" in north Belfast was one of many vehicles sporting, "It's right to say No" stickers. In the PUP office, David Ervine was not over-confident. The response was "mixed".
At a polling station at the top of the Shankill Road, most people seemed to be voting No. A 92year-old woman, accompanied by her great-granddaughter, said: "I would like to stick to what I always was. I want to stay the way I was brought up, and the way I always will be."
A PUP supporter in his 30s, Mr Alan Austin, was voting Yes "to have some peace". A man in his 20s, dressed in shirt and tie, admitted that a Yes vote would be better for his business but said he would be voting No. "A lot of my friends are Catholics, but I still feel we should be part of the Union." He did not approve of early releases for any prisoners.
One woman in her 30s was worried about what the other side was saying. "The IRA will never stop until they get a united Ireland. It's not often they agree with the unionist people, so there must be something in it for them." Another woman said she was voting Yes because it "couldn't be any worse than it is now".
At a school off the Beersbridge Road, in east Belfast, a 35-yearold grocer was voting No because of the prisoner issue. "It got my back up seeing them on television. They should do all their time." A man in his 20s was voting Yes to get the prisoners out. Most No voters accepted the Yes side would win, but were determined to make their protest.
Nationalists were quietly voting Yes. On the Falls Road, the odd IRSP poster calling for a No vote was the only obvious sign of the poll. The only convoys going up and down the road were RUC and army patrols. Army foot patrols were also on the streets.
Gerry Adams's efforts to secure a Yes vote met a cool response from one policeman on the Falls Road. When the Sinn Fein leader visited a polling station close to Divis Tower, a parking ticket was put on his car. "It's just petty harassment," a Sinn Fein spokesman said, adding that a formal complaint would be made.
There was little debate in Andersonstown. For the SDLP and Sinn Fein the real battle begins on Monday. An elderly man explained why he voted Yes. "With this, there's a possibility we will have some say in what happens. It is a start." A man in his 30s said: "The agreement is very pliable. I'd prefer to have doubts of peace than the certainties of war."