Friday the Thirteenth for Brian Cowen. The Taoiseach will face some angry European colleagues next week as the recriminations begin.

Put in its simplest terms, Mr Cowen failed to convince the electorate that the Lisbon treaty is a good deal for Ireland. Looking at the conditions in which he fought a month-long campaign it is not difficult to understand why.

The Irish economy is taking a dramatic tumble. Figures out this week showed the greatest leap in unemployment for decades: the fact that employment in recent years has never been higher has not helped to soften the impact as fear creeps in about the future as fuel and food prices soar.

Mr Cowen took over from his predecessor Bertie Ahern in awkward circumstances. The Teflon Taoiseach, as Mr Ahern was known, lost his shine over a lengthy investigation into his personal finances (last week he explained large sums of sterling currency which he previously denied having as the results of winnings on horse bets).

Mr Ahern stepped down for fear that his travails would influence the vote – but the damage was already done. Public confidence in the country’s politicians is at rock bottom.

Mr Cowen’s argument was that it did not matter if people had not read (as he admitted himself) the treaty and did not understand it because they should trust their elected leaders. It fell on deaf ears.

The main parties use referendum campaigns to promote their own interests, featuring their elected members on their posters with the message to vote Yes in smaller script. The visual impact therefore was disastrous, fuelling public disenchantment among ordinary people, already angered by being told to vote for something which they did not understand.

Nor should the resentment at being forced to make such a far-reaching decision on behalf of almost 500 million European Union citizens be under-estimated. An oft-repeated remark during the campaign was “Why are the other countries leaving this to us?” The effect was to stoke suspicions that Lisbon was such a bad deal that other Europeans were making a scapegoat of the Irish, allowing them to carry the responsibility for killing off the European project.

The chill factor was strongest among women, the young, rural dwellers and the disadvantaged, who have not benefitted as greatly from the “Celtic Tiger” - Ireland’s economic miracle.

Bernard Kouchner, the French Foreign Minister, did nothing to unpick that impression with a disastrous intervention in the final week of the campaign. “The first victims would be the Irish. They have benefited more than others,” he warned No voters.

Rather than trying to sell the positive reasons for voting Yes, his threat simply raised the temperature.

The French role in Ireland’s referendum is one of the more controversial aspects of the defeat. A leaked memo from the British Embassy in Dublin reported Irish diplomats describing President Sarkozy as “completely unpredictable”.

The memo, sent on 29 February to the Foreign Office, summarised a briefing about Irish government thinking over the referendum, emphasising that the campaign would not focus on the detail of the treaty which was “largely incomprehensible to the lay reader”.

The Irish government preferred a referendum in October but decided on an earlier date because of the risk of President Sarkozy making comments during the French presidency of the EU which might alienate Irish voters.

The memo said Dublin viewed Mr Sarkozy as “completely unpredictable”, and that the earlier date was chosen because “the risk of unhelpful developments during the French Presidency - particularly related to EU defence - were just too great”.

Irish military neutrality has been one of the main issues in the referendum, as neutrality is a historical cornerstone of state policy since independence from Britain.

The Irish official is also alleged to have told the British diplomat that Dublin wanted a sensitive approach from Brussels before the referendum on anything which might damage support for a yes vote.

He is reported to have said that “other partners”, including the European Commission, “were playing a helpful, low-profile role” and that commission vice-president Margot Wallstrom told Dermot Ahern, the Irish Foreign Affairs Minister, in February that it was willing to tone down or delay messages that might be unhelpful”.

The Irish official was also quoted as saying that voters would listen to politicians rather than make up their own mind by studying the text of the treaty.

“Most people would not have time to study the text and would go with the politicians they trusted,” according to the diplomatic memo.

That assumption was proved to be hopelessly wrong today.

Fianna Fail characterises this No vote as Ireland biting the hand that feeds. From once being the Eurocrats’ favourite nation, held up as a shining model of what the EU can achieve, Ireland is now a bete noire. The consolation, according to Irish No voters, is that they are supported by millions of other ordinary Europeans across the continent.

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