Eamonn Fitzgerald's Rainy Day

For the Lisbon Treaty to take effect, it must be ratified by all 27 states in the European Union. Twenty-six members are considering it through their legislatures and executives; only Ireland is putting it directly to its citizens in a referendum. Today.

Mary Kenny: "What a responsibility! But also, what a joy! And what a situation rich with paradoxes, too. The no campaign is being driven, to a large degree, by a gut Irish nationalism: by a deep, historical, visceral sense that Ireland fought for her sovereignty over the centuries, and made many sacrifices for this sovereignty."

David McWilliams: "It was interesting to hear Danny Cohen Bendit — the utterly cosmopolitan leader of the 1968 rebellion — say yesterday that Ireland should leave the EU if we vote 'No'. This was a man who once called for tolerance and respect for diversity of opinion. Today, he seems to think that one size fits all."

Fintan O'Toole. "And then there is that pesky 'What has the EU ever done for us?' question. The Eurocrats, damn them, have done rather a lot. We are poised between the pleasure of poking authority in the eye on the one side and the fear, on the other, of seeming like ungrateful sods."

Tom McGurk: "I don't know about you, but I don't want to live in a European superstate run by Eurocrats who are unsackable, founded on a treaty that is unintelligible and watching the democratic linkage between citizen and state disappear under oceans of verbiage."

Kevin Myers: "The penultimate argument for 'No' is that 'Yes' finally means this island shall never have any control over its frontiers or who crosses them. 'Yes' is the open sesame to Ireland becoming what other European countries already are: socially divided and angry, with autonomous little Islamistans emerging in every major city."

Richard Delevan: "If the Treaty's bottom line is to enhance the EU's power, presumably to do good, the Yes side should have argued why more power in Brussels is a good thing, and let the voters decide. Because 'trust us' was a loser before it began. The more they argue that line in the closing hours, the more certain defeat becomes."

If Ireland rejects the treaty, "The first victim would be the Irish," Bernard Kouchner, the French foreign minister, warned on Monday. "It would be very, very troubling," he added, "that we would not be able to count on the Irish who counted a lot on Europe's money." Time to pay the bill, then. Or send back the food.