It’s not been a particularly good weekend for the political establishment in Ireland. Two constitutional changes have been rejected by the electorate, despite being backed by all the mainstream parties – Fianna Fail, Fine Gael, Labour, Greens, Sinn Fein – plus the usual pundits and something called the National Women’s Council (a quango which is meant to represent women but somehow doesn’t). The state broadcaster, RTE, which finds itself in a similar position to the BBC after the Brexit vote, is curiously subdued about the outcome.

Nearly 70 per cent of Irish women with children under 18 would stay at home with them

Voters were given the option to, as the Guardian put it, ‘modernise the Irish constitution’ in line with the referendums of 2015 and 2018 which approved same sex marriage and abortion and ‘underscored Ireland’s secular, liberal transformation’, and said no, thanks all the same.

The clauses under review, very characteristic of Eamon De Valera’s 1937 constitution and described by the government as ‘outdated’, declared that ‘the state recognises the family as the natural primary and fundamental unit group of society, and as a moral institution possessing inalienable and imprescriptible rights, antecedent to and superior to all positive law’ and ‘the state pledges itself to guard with special care the institution of marriage, on which the family is founded, and to protect it against attack.’ The government wanted to qualify the bit about the family to say: ‘whether founded on marriage or on other durable relationships’ and to omit the bit about the family being founded on marriage. You can see the direction of travel.

The other element of Article 41 that the government wanted to amend was about the place of women in the home. De Valera’s constitution declared that, ‘in particular, the state recognises that by her life within the home, woman gives to the state a support without which the common good cannot be achieved’; and ‘the state shall, therefore, endeavour to ensure that mothers shall not be obliged by economic necessity to engage in labour to the neglect of their duties in the home’. Nothing there about obliging women to stay at home, and indeed has never had the smallest effect on working women, but the government wanted the gender neutral alternative: ‘the state recognises that the provision of care, by members of a family to one another by reason of the bonds that exist among them, gives to society a support without which the common good cannot be achieved, and shall strive to support such provision’. Quite a difference.

The government had billed the referendum for International Women’s Day as an opportunity to embed equality and inclusivity in the constitution. Funnily enough, lots of women took the opportunity to vote against removing the sole reference to mothers in the constitution.

The victory is all the more striking when you consider who was in favour, and who against. Actually, it would save time to simply say who was against because the entire establishment was in favour of the change. That is, a tiny party called Aontu, led by Peadar Toibin, who broke away from Sinn Fein on account of his opposition to abortion; a former justice minister, Michael McDowell, a barrister and law professor who had particular fun with the bit about ‘other durable relationships’ as a viable alternative to marriage; a few independent parliamentarians; and a steely, pretty barrister called Maria Steen.

Her encounter with the leader of (the notionally conservative) Fianna Fail party, Micheál Martin on the Prime Time television programme was one of the highlights of the campaign. He tried to patronise her by telling her what a modern family is, and repeated the line that the constitution was outdated. She responded, unanswerably, that ‘it’s hard to see how something that reflects the lived reality of women in Ireland today can be described as “outdated” because the reality is that the majority of women do the majority of work in the home’.  Which is kind of true, no?

Before the vote, the socially conservative Iona Institute conducted a poll which showed that given the chance, and with no financial considerations, nearly 70 per cent of Irish women with children under 18 would stay at home with them. But that really isn’t reflected in the parties’ political and spending priorities.

Peadar Toibin understandably billed the result as ‘a David versus Goliath referendum. We… battled against the political establishment and all the groups and the NGOs that receive funding from the political establishment as well’. But he also went on to point out that ‘in working class areas, in Sinn Fein and Labour heartlands you had significant no votes. It looks like the leadership of those parties are marooned from their supporters.’ That’s an interesting point. Because it was precisely in those areas – in Ireland, just as in Britain – where people are poorest, where the proportion of single parents is highest, that people most resoundingly voted no. Yet Mary Lou McDonald, Sinn Fein’s leader in the Republic, is still complaining about sexist language about women in the constitution.

There is an evident gulf between the political and journalistic establishment and popular opinion (seen also on immigration). It’s pertinent to Britain, too, because the whole exercise was preceded by one of those citizen’s assemblies that Sue Gray, Sir Keir Starmer’s chief of staff, is so keen on. It wanted even more radical changes than the ones proposed in the referendum. Which bears out the reality that you can manipulate these bodies to give you the outcome you want, not necessarily what the nation actually thinks. They’re a terrible idea; an opportunity for politicians to delegate their role to a notionally independent body which actually isn’t representative in any meaningful way.

Meanwhile, I’m still waiting for the explosion of rejoicing at this expression of the popular will that greeted the abortion referendum result. Nope, RTE and the pundits seem to be blaming the electorate.