Few had to be brave to wear a Yes badge, but many on the No side decided to keep quiet rather than put up with abuse. Churches were nervous and muted in their criticism. The country in which I was born and brought up has always been intolerant of dissent: in my youth, critics of Irish Catholicism kept their mouths shut or, like me, emigrated. Because of the multi-seat proportional representation system of electing members of parliament, there are no safe seats, so politicians ignored gays: it was only because a Senator (elected by the liberal Trinity College Dublin constituency) took his country to the European Court of Human Rights that homosexuality was decriminalised in 1993.