Fun, was it?

It’s been almost three weeks since Irish voters have strongly endorsed the European Union's Lisbon Treaty - 16 months after their first vote rejecting it plunged EU reforms into deadlock. About 67% voted "Yes", official results from the latest referendum showed. The treaty - which is aimed at streamlining decision-making in the 27-nation bloc - cannot take effect until all 27 member states ratify it. According to final results, 67.1% of Irish voters approved it, while 32.9% voted "No". Turnout in the three-million electorate was 58%.

Ireland was the only EU member state to hold a referendum on Lisbon, though there have been calls for referendums in several countries.

Lisbon 2 delivered more thrills, spills and laughs than most sequels, and offered us a revealing glimpse into the state of the national psyche in 2009. This latter point was one of the more sobering aspects of the campaign, as, if the evidence presented is anything to go by, we would all appear to rarely be more than one or two irrational beliefs away from going over the edge.

Otherwise reasonably sane people seemed to completely lose the run of themselves as the clock ticked down to polling day. No one seemed immune to the Lisbon hysteria. Even people who are known to the the epitome of controlled calm lost the plot.

And it wasn’t just the professional political classes who were adversely effected. How many pub conversations in the weeks leading up to the poll descended into arguments about the merits of a yes or no vote? Friends of long-standing exchanged many a harsh word, and, if you believe the anecdotal evidence, people had to agree not to talk about it if they wanted to remain civil with each other.

Some of the worst of the browbeating took place on social networking sites like Face book. Lengthy posts from people pleading with their friends to vote a certain way were commonplace. Not only was it annoying, it was also something much worse – condescending. Typically, these posts weren’t about encouraging people to inform themselves, instead the core message was an appeal for readers to come to their senses and vote as the poster demanded. The sometimes random CAPPING of words only served to add to the impression of a whole cohort of PEOPLE having gone completely MAD.

This would have been more remarkable if it hadn’t all happened before. Yes, Lisbon 2 was a sequel, but in terms of the temporary psychosis it induced, it wasn’t a successor to the first Treaty vote. The first Lisbon campaign was unhinged in its own right, but was much more intense this time out, tapping into our capacity for rabid irrationality in a way that is almost unprecedented.

Families and friends divided, raised voices in pubs, no uninformed opinion left unvoiced, unimpeachable certainty on both sides, blanket coverage across television, radio and the news papers… Does any of that sound familiar? The Face book parallel would probably hold up too, were it not for the fact that social networking websites had not taken hold here by 2002.

So, is there anything we can learn from all this? Perhaps it’s that if we spend less time being so convinced about the things we believe, we might be able to listen to what others say. Perhaps it’s that we need to appreciate that if someone disagrees with us, it doesn’t necessarily follow that they’re wrong. Or may be it’s this damn, we could have won that match or whatever.

Click here to read more about Lisbon Treaty.