’Yes’ means ‘yes’, ‘no’ means ‘no’ and no vote means ...

AT the start of the sustained loveliness that was the fiscal compact referendum campaign, the logic touted by psephologists, and other pointy-headed types, was that a low turnout would mean doom for the ‘yes’ side: if sensible (or compliant) middle Ireland was not mobilised, the process would be hijacked by disgruntled fringe voters protesting the household charge, or bogs, or the increasing prevalence of man-boobs.

Several, leading government figures all-but-admitted this risk, and, in the few days before the vote last week, dialled up the scare-o-meter to eleven with talk of ‘difficult’ budgets and an Ireland so ravaged we’d look back on the famine with fondness.

Yet the referendum was comfortably carried and with a fairly small turnout.

So what does this tell us about the Irish nation’s thinking? Naturally, the ‘yes’ side will say that it was a tough decision but the Irish people are wise, blah blah blah. But was this the entire Irish nation speaking? The total electorate last week was 3,144,828. Of that number, only 50.6% bothered to vote: there were 955,091 ‘yeses’.

In other words, less than a third of the voters in this country were in favour of the fiscal compact. The rest either opposed it or couldn’t be arsed.

One of the delights of democracy is that stupid people are allowed to vote, or not, as they see fit: so, one can safely assume that a proportion of voters didn’t bother because the whole thing was boring, or because there was something better on the telly that night, or because they had an appointment with the vajazzilist.

But that doesn’t account for the entire 49.4% who did not vote. Perhaps they, too, had heard that a low turnout would mean defeat for the referendum, and so didn’t vote on the assumption that it would be equivalent to a ‘no’.

Perhaps they couldn’t decide: so much of the campaign — the vast majority of the campaign — consisted of stony-faced predictions of future scenarios by people who have no idea what the future holds.

Or, perhaps they didn’t vote because they didn’t think it was going to make any difference.

Where I live, someone stuck up posters declaring: ‘Give Europe Total Control. Vote Yes!!’ It was intended, presumably, to be ironic: a bitter little comment on how bad we are at running our own affairs. Yet a loss of confidence must be haunting the Irish.

When the Celtic Tiger arrived, we felt that it was no more than we deserved.

After decades of small-mindedness and poverty, we seemed to have grown-up; become a proper country. But we blew it: and then we were reminded, in the cruellest way, what a small and unimportant place Ireland is.

So, perhaps, for some people, not voting was just recognition of reality: either way, others will continue to tell us what to do.