Partisan • Patriotic • Internationalist
The Iranian war exposes capitalism’s core logic: upward wealth transfer and economic instability driven by profit, speculation and debt. Rising energy prices, triggered by the war, are accelerating inflation and rippling through the economy, with knock on effects, either now, sooner or later, for transport, food and business costs. That […]
Since the turn of the century, China has been undergoing its own green industrial revolution. In 2023, China was responsible for the production of over 80% of the world’s solar panels and 60% of the world’s electric vehicles.1 China’s domestic New Energy Vehicles (NEVs) — referring to battery/pure electric vehicles, plug-in […]
The escalating conflict between the United States, Israel, and Iran is often presented as another regional crisis in the long history of Middle Eastern wars. In reality it reflects something far larger: the growing instability of the global order that has been dominated by the United States since the end […]
Available data indicate that attacks in the West Bank are no longer merely a temporary escalation in the level of violence; rather, they have evolved into a systematic pattern reflecting the intersection of settler attacks with deeper structural transformations in the conflict. This escalation became particularly evident during the period […]
The Irish ruling class, its subservient media and academia, along with a well-funded global network of “think tanks” connected to the military-industrial complex, continue to subvert neutrality and push ahead for the removal of the Triple Lock. The grovelling antics of the Irish political class were best reflected in the […]
Press headlines in Washington on Patrick’s Day 2026 were carrying the news that Joe Kent, director of the US National Counterterrorism Centre, and once a staunch MAGA supporter, had resigned. What was really surprising, though, was his reason for quitting. Kent wrote on Twitter that he couldn’t continue because he […]
At a recent excellent Connolly Conversations meeting on Iran, discussion developed about the growing left feelings and movement in the world. The fact that the movements in support of Palestine and Iran, and against Zionism, Trump and imperialism, is firing people into action and thought. This leads to discussion about […]
In 2004, the European Border and Coast Guard Agency, known as Frontex, was set up. It is tasked with aiding EU member states with border control, specifically in the Schengen area, from its headquarters in Warsaw, Poland. However, in practice, this means stopping refugees and asylum seekers and has in […]
At the threshold of the imperialist era, when the Enlightenment’s promises gave way to war, repression, and new forms of domination, contradiction — the irreconcilable tension between hope and terror — became central to art. A new aesthetics of terror emerged — an existential response to an age that shattered […]
On 17 March 1991, over 148 million Soviet citizens voted in a national referendum on whether to preserve the Soviet Union. In those republics where it was held, 113 million—or 77.85 per cent—voted in favour. At the moment of victory of the counter-revolution, a clear majority supported the continuation of […]
“Liberty, Equality and Fraternity” were the progressive slogans of the bourgeois French Revolution. Capitalism cannot deliver on those promises, because it needs inequality as a fundamental condition for its existence, since it is based on exploitation. It needs inequality amongst the people within a country and inequality amongst nations, and […]
Communists from across Ireland will gather for the 27th Congress of the Communist Party of Ireland. Under the slogan “Peace, Independence and Socialism”, Ireland’s communists will gather in Dublin this month for the 27th Congress of the Communist Party of Ireland. Delegates to Congress will debate and vote on the […]
As multiple war zones on the world map trace the urgent imperialist demand for escalation and violent intervention in economic and geopolitical arenas, the Left in the part of the world often labelled as the Global North finds itself in search of a principled position with respect to war, governments […]
Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot (1948) emerges from a 20th-century shadow shaped by war, existential uncertainty, and the threat of total annihilation. Echoing Bertolt Brecht’s warning about civilisations vanishing after repeated conflict, the play imagines what remains of humanity after catastrophe. Set on a barren stage — “a country road, a tree, […]
At the start of March, we got some good news on the planned cuts to Special Needs Assistants. Due to the public coming together and protesting these planned cuts, the working class of Ireland has put enough pressure on the government to make them turn that around and reverse their […]
The billionaire Collison brothers, founders and owners of Stripe—one of Ireland’s most successful companies—are no strangers to political-economic interjections. Previously they have criticised Government inadequacy in the areas of housing, transport and core infrastructure. This time, a report funded by them, authored by Professor Alan Ahearne, takes aim at Ireland’s […]
Zbigniew Brzezinski, former National Security Adviser to Jimmy Carter and a key strategist for imperialism during and after the Cold War, said in his 1997 book The Grand Chessboard that the biggest threat to US unipolarity would be a grand coalition of China, Russia, and perhaps Iran—an “antihegemonic” coalition united not by […]
Music, poetry, comedy and theatre performances at Connolly Books during December. Leading musicians, comedians and actors will perform live shows in Connolly Books, and its associated New Theatre, every Thursday, Friday and Saturday in December. Launching on the 4th, it is a celebration of the largely youth-driven renaissance in Irish […]
The Irish Government’s response to the US attack on Venezuela is hypocritical and exposes the extent to which the 26-County State’s membership of the EU and dependence on foreign, mostly US, capital has undermined Irish neutrality. Micheál Martin, while refusing to condemn the illegal US actions in kidnapping President Nicolás […]
The government continues its strategy of absolute subservience to the needs and interest of global imperial interest in relation to foreign policy, its ongoing efforts to undermine and get rid of Irish neutrality and the Triple Lock and its absolute unquestioning commitment to market forces solving the housing crisis. Despite […]
The Communist Party of Ireland expresses its solidarity with Kneecap, who are now under serious threat by the forces of the British State. The arrest and charging of one of the group’s members Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh, is just the latest in the ongoing effort to silence the group and […]
My da always worked odd jobs. He never had much education past secondary school. For a while, he was a caretaker at a private school in Dublin, and we lived in a wee cottage on the grounds. The pay wasn’t amazing, but it was enough to support a family of […]
For almost two decades, Friends of the International Brigades Ireland (FIBI) gather in Spain to mark important dates in the history of Spanish anti-fascist struggle with other Spanish and international groups maintaining the memory of the defense of the Spanish Republic. The 89th anniversary of the Battle of Jarama was […]
When US forces stormed Caracas earlier this year to kidnap Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, pundits were quick to point out the brazen hypocrisy. Maduro now sits in a New York jail, awaiting trial on unsubstantiated charges of cocaine trafficking, while a bona fide narco-dictator, former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernández […]
Once again, the spectre of another war haunts the Persian Gulf. The Biden—and now Trump—administration has orchestrated a massive military build-up in the region, amassing an armada of warships, stealth fighters, and bomber assets in the Gulf and the Arabian Sea. The stated pretext is Iran’s nuclear programme. The reality […]
It is not uncommon to hear dismissal of trade unions among leftists: too conservative, don’t mobilise enough, too eager to make deals with employers and so on. The issue for Communists is not whether these criticisms are true; it is rather that they miss the point. Unions reflect a market […]
Marx wrote the passage below pointing unions forward, away from narrow sectional interests and towards playing a role within the great push towards socialism underway at the time. In addition to their original tasks, the trade unions must now learn how to act consciously as focal points for organising the […]
In The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, Marx says: “Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past.” Let us compare two intellectuals—one who understood Marx’s words […]
The attacks and machinations against Irish neutrality by the coalition government, arms companies, security think tanks and the military establishment continue to gather momentum. Barely a day passes that there is not another attack and attempt to undermine neutrality—newspaper articles, discussion on radio and television spreading rumours of imminent threat […]
Reformism and liberalism manifest themselves in all sorts of ways. They are so endemic that they have become part of the human psyche. They are a central part of protests and campaigning, no matter what the cause. They have become the hallmark of perceived victories and achievements in campaigning. To […]
Is international law progressive, reactionary or neutral? Before answering, one needs a Marxist understanding of law. Marx claimed that “the totality of [society’s] relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which arises a legal and political superstructure.”[1] Following the October Socialist Revolution, the RSFSR […]
There may be a temptation on this side of the Irish Sea to regard as entertainment the recent scandals among the upper echelons of Britain’s ruling class. This would be a mistake, if only for the reason that what is happening within Britain’s governing Labour Party and its monarchy has […]
The United States has entered what can fairly be described as a new Cold War with China. The language has changed, but the methods are familiar. Containment, economic isolation, alliance discipline, and pressure on third countries have returned as the organising principles of strategy. This reorientation is no longer speculative. […]
Yet another Frankenstein film has appeared on screens. Despite acclaim, it bears little resemblance to Mary Shelley’s novel. For readers interested in Shelley’s political vision and the historical pressures shaping her work, the 1818 text remains indispensable. To mark the 175th anniversary of Mary Godwin Shelley’s death, we revisit this […]
Cuba has transformed its electricity system in just 12 months, increasing solar power from 5.8 per cent to over 20 per cent of total generation as the country races to escape dependence on oil imports now blocked by US sanctions. The Caribbean nation connected 49 new solar parks to its […]
James O’Toole’s recent article on “comprador theory”[https://rednetwork.net/red-theory/2026/02/comprador-theory-lets-the-irish-rich-hide/] raises an important and serious political concern. He is right to insist that the Irish ruling class must not be portrayed as innocent intermediaries. Irish capital exploits. The Irish state defends class interests. Irish firms extract surplus both domestically and internationally. Any analysis […]
Pundits estimate there are somewhere between 50 and 80 million Irish people around the world. Our 17th-century ancestors rebelled against plantation owners in the Caribbean, only to then shape racialist police departments across the USA. We spread the fiddle, the Pope and the craic as far as the Guinness family’s […]
