Elected to the Althing in the ‘kitchenware revolution’, a leading writer has found politics a frustrating profession, writes ELAINE BYRNE in the IRISH TIMES March 9, 2010
 
THRAINN BERTELSSON describes himself as someone “who happens to being doing time in parliament”. The Icelandic “kitchenware revolution” of January 2009 enticed him to join a contagious grassroots coalition [...]

ELAINE BYRNE in Reykjavik in Irish Times March 8, 2010
 
SATURDAY’S ICESAVE referendum was resoundingly rejected by 93.2 per cent of Icelanders, with just 1.8 per cent casting their vote in favour of the current €3.9 billion repayment package.
 
Although severe weather conditions have prevented counting of the hundred or so ballots from Grímsey island, Iceland’s northernmost island [...]

ELAINE BYRNE in Reykjavik Irish Times March 6, 2010
 
ICELANDERS ARE expected to overwhelmingly vote No in today’s referendum on the controversial Icesave deal agreed last year with the Netherlands and the UK.
 
President Olafur Ragnar Grimsson triggered Iceland’s first referendum, since it achieved independence from Denmark in 1944, when he refused to sign the Icesave Bill [...]

In contrast to our Government’s mantra that banks cannot fail, Iceland’s population is poised to vote against a deal to repay Icesave’s debts, writes ELAINE BYRNE in the Irish Times March 2, 2010
 
I LIKE to describe the manner in which I play Gaelic football as that of being a determined footballer. Unfortunately referees do not always [...]

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 [...]

A government must inspire credibility and trust indirectly through its actions. In the Fás affair our leaders have done the opposite, writes ELAINE BYRNE in the Irish Times September 29, 2009

PRESIDENT BARACK Obama had difficulty trying to convince the American public about his 10-year $900 billion plan for healthcare reform. For some, the provision of near-universal cover is the end of democracy and the prologue to communism. For others, “death panels” will now decide who lives and dies. The debate was infected by so much vitriol that former president Jimmy Carter suggested it was racially motivated.

MY GAELIC football season is almost over. I still don’t know why people insist on calling it ladies’ football. Sunday’s All-Ireland final witnessed a brilliant battle of wits between Tadhg Kennelly and Graham Canty but I’m not sure that the Kerry and Cork men would wittingly describe their sporting skills as gentlemen’s football, writes ELAINE BYRNE in the IRISH TIMES September 22, 2009

I’ve played football for Wicklow and Limerick clubs but Dublin is different. Our games bring us to parts of the city that most people never have the inclination to visit. Last week’s match was in an area of the city probably well-known to the Garda, as that subtlety goes. The dressing room was a burnt-out prefab decorated with graffiti, with no electricity or toilets.

Faced with Nama and the McCarthy report, our political parties lack the will to mount an effective campaign, writes ELAINE BYRNE in THE IRISH TIMES August 18, 2009

IT IS now 44 days until the second Lisbon referendum. At this same point in last year’s failed referendum campaign, Mark Hennessy wrote an opinion piece titled Pro-Lisbon campaign still to get off ground. Hennessy quoted the Spanish philosopher George Santayana, who said that those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

Deja vu anyone?

With 44 days to go, our politicians are still on their holidays. When the Dáil and Seanad return on September 16th, it will only be two weeks to referendum day.

Iranians are using Twitter to advise on what internet portals to use to circumvent government filters, writes ELAINE BYRNE in the Irish Times June 16, 2009

‘ HEY YOU, out there on the road/ Always doing what you’re told,/ Can you help me?”

Pink Floyd’s Hey You is the first track on the third side of their album, The Wall , released in 1979, the same year as the Iranian revolution. This famous lyric was Yasaman’s message on her social network facebook on Saturday, the same day that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was re-elected for a second term as Iran’s president.

In the video of the song, the lyric denotes the point when the riot police appear in a dark and menacing manner. The song is asking for help because of the madness that raw isolation has created.

Yasaman is an Iranian friend from Tehran and since Saturday she has posted shocking YouTube clips of police randomly beating protesters senseless with truncheons. In one clip, a dozen police clothed entirely in black with their faces masked are filmed from a rooftop violently kicking a young man lying motionless on the ground. In another, members of the army indiscriminately strike with their batons women waiting at a bus stop.