Nasty and brutish campaign sees SF emerge as real winner

ENDA Kenny’s subliminal slogan, “vote yes because things can only get worse”, may not have been the most uplifting of mantras but it delivered the win.

A grubby, bitter campaign was only tempered by its relative brevity. Philosopher Thomas Hobbes’ summation of human existence as “nasty, brutish, and short” could have been written to describe the hustings.

It was the referendum nobody wanted about the thing nobody understood and though Mr Kenny and Eamon Gilmore avoided the humiliation of having to push the whole thing through again in the autumn, they were both left damaged by the bruising experience.