Irish working class left cold by distant EU

By Paul Hoskins

DUBLIN (Reuters) - Father Michael Mernagh will be sad but not surprised if working-class voters in Ireland help derail the European Union's reform plans.

Mernagh, who runs community projects in depressed inner city areas of Dublin, believes the EU is a force for good. He plans to vote "Yes" in Thursday's referendum on a treaty that replaces a constitution rejected by French and Dutch voters in 2005.

But opinion polls show strong opposition, particularly among Ireland's working-class voters.

"There's a campaign poster out there with three monkeys on it saying 'Europe doesn't see you, Europe doesn't hear you, Europe won't speak for you' and sadly in a sense that is true," Mernagh said at the community centre where he works in Dublin.

"Europe has removed itself from us," he said. "People in inner city areas like ours, they've become the lost people really."

This traditional working class district in southwest central Dublin is known as "The Liberties", a name from medieval times when it was outside the city walls and beyond its authority.

They may still be beyond the pale of a political establishment that largely backs Europe and its reform treaty.

"I don't trust them. They're a load of gangsters," says Charles Kirkwood, a 77-year-old retired steel erector, as he waits for a haircut.