A decade ago, when I was a more strident opponent of the EU than in more recent times, such opposition was regarded as deeply eccentric, if not mad. Only a small minority in Ireland, and a smaller one throughout the EU, shared even in part our suspicions about democratic deficits and creeping federalisation.
Personally, I was always conscious of a paradox in the logic of perennial opposition to the "European project". There was, or had once been, I believed, a coherent alternative to selling our soul, but the viability of this depended on our willingness to embrace it, and this was not strong. The logic of opposition was inexorably diluted as Ireland was increasingly absorbed into what had initially been the Common Market, then the European Community, and finally, the European Union. With time we became more and more dependent, and hence less capable of marshalling any independent resources in our own favour.
This dilemma was summarised in the question we Eurosceptics were asked so often during the Maastricht campaign of 1992: "Have you got 30 million quid to give us if we say No?" The promoters of the European project insisted that there was no alternative and, by their refusal to contemplate one, made this a fact of life. The Irish people were bribed and bullied in more or less equal measure, and adopted, in response, a post-hoc rationalisation that read superficially as Europhilia.
Back in the early 1990s, support among the electorate for European federalisation was indicated at about 60 per cent. And yet, there was a complete absence of any cultural connection with what the Eurocrats insisted on calling "Europe".
In the wake of the Irish ratification of the Maastricht Treaty, it seemed to me that I could continue to admonish the tide, or accept that the physiology of the patient had been altered by the treatment. Continuing opposition to a process that seemed both irreversible and relentless began to seem like a denial of actually existing reality. Holding to a principled belief that once bought you should stay bought, I reluctantly accepted the choices my fellow voters had made, while remaining convinced that they were mistaken. I didn't become an advocate of the European "ideal", but I certainly ceased to be an opponent.
There were others, like the wondrous Anthony Coughlan, who felt otherwise. This dwindling coalition of the courageous and the crazy continued to warn Ireland about the dangers of selling its soul for a few flyovers. Though defeated in battle after battle, they continued to make their case, flying in the face of reality and the public will. Ignoring the accusation that the changing political landscape had rendered their logic irrelevant, they made the same case again and again. The EU, they said, was ultimately about creating a European superpower in which the sovereignty and independence of individual nations would be surrendered to an unelected elite. "Nonsense!", cried the Eurobullies. "Don't be mithering us," said the Irish people.
Then, for a brief moment, the Irish electorate stumbled in its passion for "Europe", rejecting the Nice treaty in a show of possibly accidental mutiny. This was quickly brought to heel and a second try provided the right answer. My own sense of that episode was that a sizeable chunk of Irish voters wanted to give the Eurobullies a bloody nose, though without risking the flyovers, but none of them realised that so many others felt the same way.
What the Nice episode suggested was what we had suspected all along: our ostensible passion for Europe might be a cloak for self-interest.
Just because we didn't want to be the ones to pull the communication cord didn't necessarily mean that we wanted the through ticket. The thought occurred that, perhaps all the time, even as the voters had been rejecting and ridiculing the arguments of the No camp, they had really been saying to themselves: "Actually, these guys may be dead right, but why should we give up all this dough when, especially if they are right, the whole thing is going to come off the rails whether we support it or not? Let's pretend to be good Europeans and let someone else do the dirty".
We may never know the truth of our own motivations, but now that the true nature of the project of European federalisation has been rumbled, not by the disgruntled at the fringes but by those at the very heart of what was intended to be the new European empire, we are off the hook.
Having unloaded all the goodies from the gravy train, we can rejoice in our utter blamelessness for its final derailment.
You might call it the luck of the Irish, but I think we know better. All in all, if you were to identify a single quality to define the Irish attitude to "Europe", that quality would be something close to applied cunning. Anthony Coughlan may have been politically, morally and intellectually vindicated, but the Irish people have had their cake and eaten it.