Electorate prone to mood swings
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IT MAY be said that it's a woman's prerogative to change her mind, but the Irish electorate is equally prone to mood swings.
The Lisbon II referendum is now the third occasion whereby the Irish voters have been asked to change their minds and obliged.
But the Yes triumph certainly represents the most decisive swing in Irish voting patterns in the State's history.
The first critical example of the electorate's capacity to change its mind on constitutional issues occurred during our two bitterly contested divorce referenda.
The first divorce referendum of 1986 saw the No side winning by 63.5 per cent to 36.5 per cent
However, little more than nine years later this was reversed after one in seven voters switched their votes and allowed the 'Yes' side to come out on top with 50.3 per cent. The swing was even more profound in the Nice I and Nice II referenda.
In Nice I, 46.1 per cent of the voters said Yes. However, just one year later a massive 17 per cent switched to the Yes side to see the government side home with 63 per cent.
Yesterday's count offered us just the latest confirmation of the volatility of an electorate who defeated the initial Lisbon referendum by a margin of 53.4 per cent to 46.6 per cent
On Friday, however, a massive 20.5 per cent U-turn saw one in five voters changing their minds as the Yes side secured 67.1 per cent of the popular vote.
In a result which rivalled the Good Friday Agreement in the comprehensive nature of the 'Yes' side win, the constituencies of Dun Laoghaire and Dublin South recorded a Yes vote of more than 80 per cent.
The Yes side also secured more than 70 per cent of the votes in the constituencies of Clare, Dublin North, Carlow Kilkenny, Dublin North Central, Tipperary South, Meath East, Kerry North and Dublin South East. The Taoiseach's own constituency of Laois-Offaly recorded an impressive 73.17 per cent Yes vote, while in Mayo, Enda Kenny managed to secure an astonishing 23.41 per cent swing in the Yes vote.
There were even huge swings to the Yes side in the two solitary No constituencies of Donegal. When it came to the Lisbon swingometer, the constituencies with the biggest percentage swing to the Yes side were as follows:
1. Limerick West 24.67
2. Dublin South West 24.01
3. Kerry South 23.76
4. Mayo 23.41
5. Kerry North 23.18
6. Waterford 22.85
7. Cork South West 22.74
8. Cork East 22.7
9. Dublin North 22.08
10. Dublin Mid West 21.89
Meanwhile, another 26 constituencies secured a 20 per cent or more swing to the Yes side.
- JOHN DRENNAN
Originally published in
