I want to tell you a story today about two men born in the age of Parnell.
 
Ireland after Parnell, in the dying years of the 1800s, was a grey place of paralysis. Politically stuck and fighting with itself.
 
The opportunity to right the wrongs of the Act of Union seemed lost.
The promise of Home Rule forlorn.
 
Yet [...]

As the teacher union conferences get under way, more focus needs to be given to the future of Irish education, writes ELAINE BYRNE in the Irish Times APril 6, 2010
 
THE ANNUAL teacher union conferences are currently under way and much of the focus over the next week will centre on their response to the public [...]

The message for those contemplating making the jump to public life is that only insiders will dominate politics, writes ELAINE BYRNE in the IRISH TIMES February 9 2010
 
“IT IS a privilege to be here, of which I am conscious . . . Given the outcome of the byelection, there is no going back now . [...]

THE LAST RTÉ Radio One This Week programme of the decade on Sunday encapsulated much about Irish public life. Three of its four stories dealt with the consequences of secrecy, writes ELAINE BYRNE in the IRISH TIMES December 22, 2009
 
Tommie Gorman’s searching interview with Gerry Adams unveiled allegations of sexual abuse made by his niece [...]

Our subservient way of thinking as a people bestows impunity on those in positions of power in the Irish Times December 1, 2009
 
‘IT IS the deaf people that create the lies.’ Irish proverbs are full of phrases about the power of silence.
 
Fr Donal Gallagher from the Dublin parish of St Peter’s in Phibsboro, horrifically exploited [...]

Limerick felt exotic compared to rural Wicklow when I was growing up but then I went to Czechoslovakia, writes ELAINE BYRNE in the IRISH TIMES November 10, 2009
 
THE FALL of the Berlin Wall 20 years ago symbolised the wider downfall of the Soviet sphere of influence and life irrevocably changed for the communist regimes of [...]

ITAY TALGAM is a renowned orchestral conductor from Israel who believes that the orchestra is a metaphor for the workplace. The conductor has the opportunity and possibility to create an organised collective sound from the untidy noise of a diverse ensemble of individual musical instruments with the nuance of a single gesture, writes ELAINE BYRNE [...]

Comments on the Conditions of Gaelscoil An Ghoirt Álainn

The struggle over the siting of a Gaelscoil raises serious questions about segregation in education, writes ELAINE BYRNE in THE IRISH TIMES October 20, 2009

‘SAVE THE Tank Field” is the rallying call of the posters on the telephone polls and hedgerows dotted in the Cork housing estates north of the river Lee, from Patrick’s Bridge up to St Luke’s into Dillons Cross, Mayfield and finally to Montenotte. So called because a large water tank serviced the immediate vicinity when houses were first built in the 1930s, the struggle for the Tank Field merits comparison with a John B Keane play.

The 2.5-acre field is the only open public green space in northeast Cork city and lies on the boundary between affluent Montenotte and working-class Mayfield. It seemed like any other field to me when I visited last week. Local primary schools were playing a football match and elderly people were walking their dogs. But a white line painted on the wall, denoting the proposed site for Gaelscoil Ghórt Álainn, makes this no ordinary field.

Just as Watergate transformed journalism internationally, it appears the recession will do likewise. Elaine Byrne in The IRISH TIMES, August 11 2009
 
THE FORTUNES of journalists Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein rose considerably when they broke the biggest story in American politics.
 
Between 1972 and 1976, Woodward and Bernstein uncovered political dirty tricks that ultimately resulted in [...]