From peat farmers bitter about Brussels to a prime minister indignant about his opponents’ campaign tactics, all Ireland was on display on Thursday in a make-or-break referendum on the European Union’s Lisbon treaty

Ireland – the only one of the EU’s 27 member states to have a referendum on the treaty – accounts for less than 1 per cent of the bloc’s population of almost 500m. A No vote would block the treaty and detonate an EU political crisis.