Fianna Fail turned out in strength for Bertie and a Yes vote on Tuesday night. Several hundred people crowded into a rally at the Gresham Hotel in Dublin, part of a nationwide programme to appeal to party workers to get the vote out on May 22nd.
There were white "peace" ribbons with the single word "Yes" printed on them in green. Spotlights focused on posters of the Taoiseach signing the Belfast Agreement. There was a screening of the poignant commercial which is being shown in cinemas which has grainy archive film from the early days of the Troubles, followed by more hopeful scenes of old political enemies shaking hands and even hugging each other.
Every speaker referred to the need for a high turnout tomorrow week. Mr Ahern described the vote on the Belfast Agreement as perhaps "the most important civic duty" which most of us will ever be called on to perform. He appealed to employers to give people time off to vote. For the first time, we are seeing evidence of a campaign being fought, at least by Fianna Fail, as intensely as a general election.
There is still anxiety about a low turnout, hence the direct appeal to Fianna Fail activists to hustle out the last voter in the last car, as they would for the last seat in a Dail constituency.
Mr P.J. Mara, in expansive form, spoke of the strategy driving the campaign. Research had shown that voters were not particularly concerned about the constitutional and other details of the agreement. Instead, they see it as offering a chance for peace in the North, and that is what they will be voting for.
It's a message which still needs to be put across with some degree of passionate conviction in the North, and it may be that the Taoiseach should play a greater part in this. It's understandable that Mr Ahern has seen his main duty as delivering a massive Yes vote in this State. But, barring unforeseen disaster, it's now fairly clear that this will probably happen anyway.
The resumed Sinn Fein Ardfheis on Sunday recommending a Yes vote has ensured that all that is now in question is the size of the vote.
This is far from the case in Northern Ireland. Each day brings alarming reports of undecided unionist voters swinging to the No camp. The most urgent challenge facing both governments between now and polling day is to stop this haemorrhage and, if possible, reverse it.
No one should be in any doubt about the political realities involved. Unless there is a very substantial Yes vote from the unionist community on May 22nd, the Belfast Agreement, so carefully constructed over so long, will not work.
Instead, we will be facing into the kind of bitter recriminations and increased alienation which followed the Anglo-Irish Agreement in l985. That doesn't necessarily mean there will be a return to violence, but it does mean that politics will become more difficult and more fractious and that hope will have been dealt a serious blow.
What can the Government do to help this situation? The first priority must be to understand that developments "down here" can cause reactions "up there" and act accordingly.
Mr Ahern may have thought it necessary, in the interests of delivering a strong nationalist vote, to release republican prisoners to attend the Sinn Fein Ardfheis. But it should have been possible to ensure that this was not used to produce the scenes from the RDS which appeared on television on Sunday night.
To be fair, it didn't feel quite so triumphalist if one was actually present in the hall. My reaction, looking at the prisoners and contrasting their much-aged appearance with the sleek, dark suits and glossy hairstyles of the Sinn Fein leadership, was to again ask: "What was it all for, spending 22 years in a series of British jails, and has it been worth it?"
But, quite apart from whether it was intended as a show of strength, there was no need for such a display to have happened at all. Gerry Adams knows very well that there are times when discretion is the better part of politics, which was why he accepted that there should be no media present when he met Mary Robinson in west Belfast.
Talking to unionists in recent weeks, I've been struck by the fact that the issues which most worry them are not questions about the constitution, nor even the working of cross-Border bodies. Rather, they are the issues which seem to put a question mark over the whole moral context of the agreement: the early release of prisoners; the decommissioning of illegal paramilitary weapons; what they fear as the possible "betrayal" of the RUC; bringing former terrorists into government before they have given up their arms.
Archdeacon Gordon Linney articulated some of these feelings on Tuesday when he described as "an outrageous moral fudge" the Government's ability to regard the killers of Garda Jerry McCabe as deserving of different treatment from those who had murdered RUC men in the North.
It is this sense of moral ambiguity - that anything can and will be justified on the grounds of political expediency - which so offends many unionist voters and is driving them into the No camp. It needs to be confronted, and soon.
Mr Ahern has a good relationship with David Trimble. He should speak to the Ulster Unionist leader and ask him what might best be done to bring into the open the complexity of these issues and to offer reassurance on them.
It may be that Mr Ahern should make a major speech, directed to the unionist community, in which he spells out that he understands their anxieties and will do his best to accommodate them.
The Taoiseach could explain that the agreement presents difficulties for almost everybody involved, that the release of prisoners demands great courage and generosity from the victims but that he believes these sacrifices will be proved worthwhile for the prize of peace.
Rather than reproach some people for being caught in a time-warp, he could remind his audience of those victims who, even in recent times, have found the courage to forgive those who have hurt them and to pray that others may be spared the suffering which they have had to endure.
Of course, there will be those who dismiss whatever Mr Ahern might have to say as further evidence of his arrogance and/or duplicity. But there will be others who will listen because they are fair-minded enough to know that Mr Ahern has worked hard to bring this agreement about, and that he wants to make it work.
The Taoiseach should appeal directly to them, say that none of us knows what lies ahead but that he and the people he represents are committed to this agreement because he believes it offers the best hope for peace and parity of esteem for all those living on this island.