Despite an alumni that includes Nobel laureate WB Yeats, former president Mary Robinson and the gay rights campaigner and James Joyce expert David Norris, Ireland's electorate is expected on Friday to vote for the abolition of the Republic's second parliamentary chamber.
But as Irish voters go to the polls in a referendum to turn the Republic into a unicameral democracy, defenders of the Seanad (Senate) say abolishing it will lead to a "power grab" by the taoiseach, Enda Kenny.
The last national opinion poll published by the Irish Times/MRBI Ipsos at the start of this week found that 44% will vote to get rid of the Seanad while 27% will oppose abolition.
Senators such as one of Ireland's leading cancer surgeons John Crown are now pinning their hopes on the 21% undecided moving to the NO camp.
For Kenny, the referendum, which also includes a vote on creating a new Irish court of appeal, is a key test of his authority as premier ahead of yet another austerity budget later this month.
But for Crown and fellow Senators, as well as the main opposition party Fianna Fáil, Kenny's claim that abolition will save
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