Until Thursday all was more of the same, confusion among voters, together with hostility and deadly seriousness at the election hustings. It was yawningly boring, with A contradicting B and B snarling back and C bitching at both of them. D spent a lot of time looking into mirrors and congratulating herself on being the fairest of them all.
A friend and admirer of Mary McAleese said coyly on television: "Mary is simply the hostess with the mostest." And there was McA herself telling anyone who will listen that she is as good as a Mrs Robinson Mark 2.
There was all of that and more cringe-making stuff until suddenly on Thursday the lights came on and everything fell into place. It happened at the SIPTU trade union conference when a delegate, Elaine Harvey, lambasted the male delegates for the high incidence of sexual harassment at trade union conferences.
She promised to name names if the brotherhood did not come into line within the year. It took courage, guts and honesty to "out" this problem at such a forum. Other women delegates raised further inequalities surrounding work and women. Kay Garvey said there were eight grades in SIPTU, from cleaners to the general secretary. But out of the 21 top officials there was not a woman in sight.
One reason Elaine Harvey's speech was so welcome was its timing and its toughness. It came smack in the middle of the presidential election campaign which has four women and one man running for the office. So far I have not heard any of them speak about the legion of inequalities that ringfence women's lives.
What Elaine Harvey did was to remind everybody that the same old issues are still around. They still have to be fought for and monitored assiduously. This Government has already effectively pulped the senior Ministry for Equality and Law Reform by pushing it into the Department of Finance. I have not heard much to-do about that and I certainly have not heard the candidates on it.
Neither have I heard them raise issues like equal pay, child-care facilities, more efficient back-to-work schemes and the other hoary old chestnuts that are still around since the women's movement started in the early 1970s.
While these issues are still undeniably around but not talked about, I believe we are now seeing the first real backlash to what women fought like tigers for and won back then. The fight is still going on but the methods have changed and those opposing full equality for women are as likely to be your female colleagues or bosses.
The new middle-aged, new middle-management couple have got just far enough to show off the trappings of their success: au pair, two cars, two holidays, fee-paying schools etc. They are not going to open their mouths and lose the company cars. They prefer the company of men: it suggests a sort of equality by association.
Neither will most of these women talk too much about their children. They are nearly always out of sight and the women are as available as their husbands to work all hours. Everybody wears suits, whether they suit them or not. It isn't about being, or feeling, sexy any more. It is about being able to blend into the picture of the Cabinet or any other such structure.
You even saw it with Mary Robinson during the week, when RTE showed Charlie Bird's film of trailing around with her over a couple of years. It was when she got a bit emotional at a press conference in Nairobi after seeing some of the most horrific sights of her life. We were allowed to see her and Nick discuss her "breakdown" when they were safely back in the Aras.
The woman did not even have to take the odd Prozac. Why should she not cry at the horror that men do? Is not her gender and her reactions to things one of the reasons she is in her new job? Obviously not, since with the benefit of hindsight they both agreed that she should have calmed down before facing the cameras.
While I was writing this I was handed a fax from Adi Roche with replies to questions I have put to some of the candidates (they are notoriously difficult to track down).
We will hold Adi Roche's responses until all the others are in.