Irish Hold Referendum on Lifting Ban on Divorce : Polling: Close vote expected on 70-year-old prohibition against ending a marriage.

Ireland voted Friday in a knife-edge refer endum pitting church against state that could scrap a 70-year-old ban on divorce.

There was a high turnout in sunny Dublin, which could tilt the balance toward scrapping the constitutional ban when final results are known today, pollsters said.

Traditionally more liberal in outlook and voting patterns, Dublin is home to the majority of Ireland’s 2.6 million voters, and a large “yes” vote in the capital to accept divorce--over the objections of the Roman Catholic church--could tilt the balance, they said.

By contrast, turnout in rural areas, usually more conservative, was reported to be moderate and not helped by wintry wet weather in many regions, they said.

Neither side was claiming victory after opinion polls showed that they were neck and neck in the last few weeks of campaigning on one of the most significant choices put before modern Ireland.

Some polling stations in rural and urban areas reported a turnout of more than 60%, the same strong showing as in 1986, when the country rejected legal divorce by a 2-1 margin.

The debate split the country between liberals, who believe that the near-unique Irish ban on divorce is outmoded, and church-backed conservatives, who fear that it will open the floodgates to change and herald a move away from traditional family values.

President Mary Robinson, the liberal guardian of the constitution, was among the first to cast her vote.

Robinson, probably the most popular figure in Irish politics, is supposed to be neutral in affairs of state but was the target of attack by the church-backed “no” lobby, which believed that she tacitly backed the “yes” vote.

She told a U.S. television channel that a great deal had changed for the better in family law since Ireland voted in 1986.

This was seen by her opponents as a reference to a series of bills to underpin the equitable sharing of property among separated couples and was taken to mean that she supported divorce.

Prime Minister John Bruton and his deputy, Foreign Affairs Minister Dick Spring, were also among early voters. Both have campaigned loudly for a “yes” vote, saying the nation must give the separated and estranged a second chance in life.

The government and opposition are backing the “yes” vote. Bruton has suggested that it is in tune with moves to end the division of Ireland by reassuring Northern Ireland’s Protestant majority that Irish laws are the same as British ones.

Voting intentions in the referendum appear to have followed the 1986 vote, when a 60% majority for divorce was whittled away by a vigorous campaign against allowing people to remarry.

The Roman Catholic hierarchy, backed by support from the Vatican, has been at the forefront of appeals against tampering with the constitution or the institution of marriage.