The Fianna Fail government elected in 1969 had three remarkable achievements to its credit. It stood its ground in the wake of the arms crisis; paved the way to Sunningdale and the first power-sharing executive in Northern Ireland, and negotiated entry to the Common Market.
Not that the government was given much credit for this. Its steady hand and conciliatory line on Northern affairs were supported by Fine Gael and Labour, in an early version of bipartisanship, but resented by many in the ranks of Fianna Fail.
EEC membership, too, was supported by Fine Gael - with the better organised and better-off employers and farmers - but opposed by a coalition of Labour leaders, trade unionists, nationalists, republicans and assorted left-wingers. It was a noisy, incoherent group, which soon lost one of its leading members when Labour joined Fine Gael in government after the 1973 election.
Those of us who cheered the anti-marketeers may not have been able to propose a feasible alternative to the EEC. But we had a clear idea of the dangers that lay ahead if the French finally relented and, with the British and Danes, we became part of the Common Market.
Trade unionists worried about the survival of traditional industries. Those who had already campaigned against the Anglo-Irish Free Trade Area Agreement saw membership of any international organisation, other than the United Nations and the Catholic Church, as a threat to sovereignty.
Some shared the concerns that had led small farmers to demonstrate with the National Farmers' Association a few years earlier.
They imagined empty fields and ruined houses. Others were convinced we'd drown in waves of alien culture before the decade was out.
Years earlier, Brian Behan had prophesied that Ireland would be reduced to the status of a holiday camp, the Butlins of Europe.
And the great Labour MP, Ben Parkin of Paddington, had said the Irish were Britain's new helotry: now we'd be the helotry of Europe.
But, even more than empty fields and shuttered factories, we feared change. And for farmers, the most ominous change was threatened by the Mansholt plan: the proposals of the Dutch socialist Sicco Mansholt, later president of the Commission, to reform and rationalise agriculture.
Some of our fears were justified. Many traditional industries were doomed. But they would have failed whether we'd joined the EEC or stayed outside. And if we'd stayed outside, Ireland would not have been as attractive as it is to companies seeking entry to a rich and growing market.
Erstwhile opponents of membership - trade union leaders and Labour activists - are among the most convinced advocates of membership of the European Union and the social democratic policies pursued by most of the member-states.
Tens of thousands of farmers have had to leave the land for employment in cities and towns.
It would have been a more orderly change if Mansholt's proposals had not been blocked by stubborn conservatism and conflicting national interests.
As it turned out, he'd prepared the ground for the Common Agricultural Policy.
Some who feared loss of sovereignty are as suspicious as ever. Many more recognise a different threat, not only to this State but to the primacy of politics here and elsewhere. The threat comes, not from a stronger EU but from international corporations, more powerful than most states and indifferent to the needs of their citizens.
Thirty years ago, few spoke or wrote here about the Common Market as a potential defender of the interests of its citizens.
And anyone who did was solely concerned with economic interests.
Now, it's clear that without international organisations which have a clear democratic mandate, an efficient system of government and the strength to ensure compliance with their regulations, the interests of citizens will be sacrificed to corporate power.
Membership of the EU has changed Irish politics in a way that we dared not imagine in the 1970s.
Not only has it wrought change in some of the laws that governed our social affairs, it has introduced a new and stimulating debate about the direction we want to take at the beginning of the 21st century.
Talk of the choice between Boston and Berlin is shorthand for an essential debate about a choice between the social democracy of the EU and the low-tax, low-pay "Cayman Ireland" which some consider to be an alternative.
Today's Irish Times/ MRBI Poll shows that in the debate on the Nice Treaty, the gap between supporters and opponents is narrowing. It also shows that awareness of what's at stake is increasing slowly, painfully so.
Those who are most concerned with EU affairs emphasise how urgent it is for the Irish public to get down to the European debate as soon as the referendum is over. I agree.
I think we urgently need a debate on our domestic affairs as well. We may come to realise that what we're talking about is the same thing.