This piece by Miriam Lord gives an idea of one approach that was taken. (If the link hits a paywall, try searching Google News for "Miriam Lord" and "Averil" - this will only work for the next couple of days (from May 26, 2015), due to The Irish Times' paywall policy.)
In her piece, Miriam Lord, the Times' lemony eye on politics, describes the Fianna Fail politician Averil Power trying to get local Fianna Fail people to canvass for the referendum their party officially backed, while also canvassing for their local candidate in a by-election. She was laughed out of it. She has now left Fianna Fail.
"The lads were highly amused," she writes. "Sure they couldn't be doing that. There's a general election coming up, and you wouldn't want to be upsetting anyone on the doorsteps by talking about the gays, and the way they might look at you."
("The way they might look at you" is a reference to this ad.)
Fianna Fail is the party founded by Eamon de Valera, which has always positioned itself as espousing the ideals of 1916, such as decent homes, respect for the old, good Catholic families, etc; rather ignoring the fact that some of the 1916 leaders and fighters had ideals that included equality and didn't include religion.