The implication is that Ireland had hitherto been a bit of a knuckle-dragger, and it was only through saying Yes to gay marriage that it could propel itself into upright, opposable-thumbs modernity. To be against gay marriage is to linger in the doldrums of half-formed humanity; to favour gay marriage is to be decent, civilised, “evolved”.

A New Ireland has been born. That’s the consensus following the victory of Yes in the referendum. Ireland has finally broken free of its dark, intolerant, baby-burying past, and has emerged blinking into the light of the gay-friendly, rainbow-hued 21st century.

It’s a tantalising (and also patronising) moral narrative: the redneck Catholic country on the Western corner of Europe coming in from the cold and taking its place at the seat of civilisation.

But how true is it? Has Ireland overnight morphed from an intolerant nation into the youngest and freshest faced proper democracy?

I’m not buying it. On the contrary, the most striking thing about the Yes camp has been its intolerance: its hostility to dissent; its demonisation of its opponents; the casualness with which it wrote off swathes of Ireland as bigots, cretins, unfit for modern public life.

This is the disturbing irony of the Yes camp: it presents itself as the historic antidote to the backwardness of old Catholic Ireland, yet it rehabilitates, in updated lingo, the intolerance of Old Ireland.

This so-called New Ireland might prefer the rainbow flag to the tricolour, and the wearing of Yes badges over the donning of crucifixes, but it is not as different to the Old Ireland as it likes to imagine.

It became clear in the final weeks of the referendum campaign that it was no longer really about gay marriage. The political chatter became less about equality, and more about Ireland’s global moral reputation.

Enda Kenny said a Yes victory would “send out a powerful signal internationally that Ireland has evolved into a fair, compassionate and tolerant nation”. Stephen McIntyre of Twitter said Yes would enhance “Ireland’s international reputation”.

The referendum was only ostensibly about who may say “I do”. More fundamentally, in the eyes of Ireland’s political, business and chattering elites, it was an opportunity for this troubled nation to re-imagine itself.

It was a chance for Ireland to address its post-Catholic, post-nationalist identity crisis and magic up an instant shiny new identity as an “evolved” nation of gay-friendliness and political correctness.

Kenny’s use of the Darwinesque word “evolved” – also used by Barack Obama to describe his embrace of gay marriage – was telling.

The implication is that Ireland had hitherto been a bit of a knuckle-dragger, and it was only through saying Yes to gay marriage that it could propel itself into upright, opposable-thumbs modernity. To be against gay marriage is to linger in the doldrums of half-formed humanity; to favour gay marriage is to be decent, civilised, “evolved”.

This moralisation of the referendum, the transformation of Yes into a vote for civilisation and No into a vote for a pre-evolved way of life, meant intolerance became inevitable.

[Editor’s note: This article is incomplete. The link (URL) to the original article is unavailable and has been removed.]