It doesn’t matter. The Constitution can only be amended by referendum.

“Of course, the best solution is to create a populist-conservative party, if only Irish conservatives weren’t so damn habitual and loyal”

Not a peculiarly Irish problem.

Perhaps in Ireland there is the sentiment found occasionally among Catholic paleocons in Britain (such as Peregrine Worsthorne, the late Auberon Waugh and, on the only major point on which I disagree with him, TAC’s own Stuart Reid) that the EU might become a re-born Christendom; that, in Waugh’s view “at least its atheism is Catholic atheism”.

Fair enough about standing as an independent. I wish you luck.

Yes, Sinn Fein is only 5-10% of the South, not the majority of EU opposition. But the pro-life Lisbon Treaty opponents still mostly vote for Fianna Fail, of which I assume at least 80% of TDs back the Treaty, if not also for Fine Gael, which is even more federalist.

And Fianna Fail just joined the European Liberal group, so whatever pro-life leanings they might generally have don’t get them too far.

Of course, the best solution is to create a populist-conservative party, if only Irish conservatives weren’t so damn habitual and loyal.

The best thing to do is to stand as an Independent. That’s what I’m doing. Once we are in, then we or our successors, encountering each other, can coalesce into new parties, just as the old ones emerged.

I suppose locally there are a few small Christian parties and if I were a Scot, I might back Alex Salmond as the least of evils, but one should really make a positive, rather than fully negative, recommendation.

Abstaining won’t matter, just like America still has to be called the “Father of Democracy” even right after elections where most people don’t vote, and probably a third of people have no clue they are supposed to.

After all, they had at least something to do with propping up the right-wing of the Labour Party >>> SDP and pro-NATO social democrats all over Europe. Hell, the PDSI in Italy was virtually their creation.

As for Sinn Fein and the South of Ireland, they are the largest anti-EU political force. To a large degree, they play a positive role there.

The claim that NORAID was being funded by the CIA does seem rather… extraordinary. Forgive my imposition, but I would very much like to see what actual proof there is of that.”

The SDLP wasn’t killing the Workers’ Party or anyone else, so it was of no interest to the CIA. NORAID publications from the time are, as I said, entirely matter-of-fact. And, as I said, NORAID supporters are notoriously naive about the nature of Irish Republicanism.

“I just hope they never take control in the South”

The British Army now marches there in full dress uniforms at funerals. God Save The Queen is sung at international sporting fixtures at Croke Park, on the very turf where executions where carried out during the War of Independence. But the South has a very elaborate system of Proportional Representation. And those who were already poor just got a whole lot poorer.

But you are right about the “dissidents”. If they were really any such thing, then they’d be dead. And Irish-Americans might consider that the Sinn Fein Education Minister in Northern Ireland has banished the Anglican, Presbyterian and Methodist clergy from their historic role in schools, as the prelude to banishing the Catholic Church from the schools throughout Ireland, while, under the aegis of the Irish language (and at public expense), Sinn Fein is establishing its own network of schools in direct competition with the Catholic Church.