The voting system inhibits meaningful ideological debate and fortifies the catch-all character of Irish politics, writes ELAINE BYRNE in the Irish Times April 28, 2009
 
PROBABLY THE worst thing about writing a book on the history of corruption in Ireland is the permanent sense of deja vu. The political carousel goes round and round rehearsing the [...]

Today, the national question is no longer one about political liberty, but economic freedom, writes ELAINE BYRNE in the Irish Times April 21, 2009

‘IN THE political and national dictionary of Ireland the word ‘impossible’ does not occur because if it did occur, this nation would never have been free.”

If you do one thing today, read taoiseach John A Costello’s November 24th, 1948 Dáil speech on the Republic of Ireland Bill, available online from the Oireachtas archives. The Act came into force on Easter Monday, 60 years ago this month. Ireland was formally declared a Republic and left the British Commonwealth.

Despite Peter Bacon’s dismissal of moral issues, integrity and transparency will be fundamental in the challenges ahead, writes ELAINE BYRNE in the Irish Times April 14, 2009
 
‘I’M AN economist not a moralist, so let’s deal with the economic issues,” Peter Bacon said on RTÉ television’s Prime Time last Thursday.
 
Bacon, the special adviser who drew up [...]

Have we forgotten the hard earned lessons of our history? That of character and perseverance? asks ELAINE BYRNE in the Irish Times, April 7, 2009

‘TIS ALWAYS the darkest the hour before day!” wrote Samuel Lover, the renowned balladeer and novelist born on Grafton Street just before Easter 1797.

For the almost half million unemployed and those with the real fear of becoming that statistic, this is not a day for poetry. Words of verse are no consolidation for overwhelmed mortgage holders, young professionals apprehensive of the future and those who now queue in their hundreds for food parcels. Fear has that amplifying power to smother the memory of hope and deaden the spirit.