EUROPEAN DIARY: At Ravenstein Golf Club outside Brussels last Thursday, much of Ireland's accumulated European wisdom sat down to a long, convivial dinner.
All seven Commissioners, from Dr Patrick Hillery to Mr David Byrne, were there, along with Mr Eamonn Gallagher, the former diplomat and senior Commission official who is the unofficial head of the Irish community in Brussels.
It was the first time the Commissioners have ever been gathered together in one place and they came, not to attend the Convention on the Future of Europe, but to play a game of golf and to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Wild Geese, the Irish golf club in Brussels.
The visit was the idea of Mr Peter Casey, the founder of the Wild Geese and an immensely popular figure in Brussels. Despite Mr Casey's charm, few expected him to succeed in persuading all seven Commissioners to come.
But by the time their two-day visit was over, it was clear that Dr Hillery, Mr Michael O'Kennedy, Mr Richard Burke, Mr Peter Sutherland, Mr Ray McSharry and Mr Padraig Flynn were not only revisiting a golf club but celebrating the entire history of Ireland's engagement in the EU.
During their dinner at Ravenstein, where the Justice and Home Affairs Commissioner, Mr Antonio Vitorino, was Mr Byrne's guest, the conversation eventually turned to the crisis surrounding the Nice Treaty. All agreed that, despite the opinion polls and the doom-laden prediction of Ms Mary Banotti, a second referendum stood an excellent chance of success.
But they differed on how best to achieve such an outcome, with some advocating a cautious approach while at least one argued that the positive case for Europe must be made more aggressively. Mr Gallagher, who believes the treaty to be flawed by its removal of the automatic right of each member state to a Commissioner, is understood to have remained silent. The following day, after a round of golf at Keerbergen, the Commissioners attended a Wild Geese prize-giving dinner. Dr Hillery made a short, elegant speech recalling his experience as Ireland's first Commissioner and Mr Byrne declared that the Wild Geese represented the best of what it meant to be Irish in Brussels.
Even for those of us who abhor golf, it was difficult to look around the gathering of about 100 people and disagree with Mr Byrne.
What began as an informal group of a few like-minded friends has grown and become highly organised over the past 20 years. But it retains an informal, good-humoured character that foreigners imagine to be typically Irish. Watching the Commissioners chat to old friends and joke with strangers, it was hard to imagine their counterparts from any other member state mixing so easily in such a diverse crowd. Many of the Wild Geese work in the European institutions at one level or another but many more have no connection whatsoever with the bureaucracy.
Like the Irish Theatre Group, which stages a number of unusually accomplished productions each year, the Wild Geese helps to create a sense of community for all the Irish in Brussels.
This social cohesion has long been the envy of other national groups, who have watched over the years as the Irish network has helped to extract the maximum benefit for Ireland from EU membership.
Despite the high spirits of last week's celebrations, however, there was an uneasy sense of an era passing.
The rejection of the Nice Treaty confirmed what many in Brussels have suspected for some time - that many Irish people have lost their enthusiasm for Europe.
After years of being trumpeted as the great European success story, Ireland is increasingly seen as an awkward customer.
Mr John Bruton warned last week that a second rejection of Nice would make Ireland Europe's "problem child".
As they fret in the chancelleries of Europe over how to respond to a second No vote, there are signs that Mr Bruton's prediction has come true already.