Partisan • Patriotic • Internationalist
This summer, Belfast saw the worst of its colonial legacy, and the best of its working-class resistance. In June, racist pogroms tore through the city while the state stood by. By August, Féile an Phobail offered a different vision: solidarity over division; internationalism over ethnonationalism. At the heart of that […]
A lot has been written and said over the past month about Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann in Belfast, culture, and partition. While being able to somewhat accurately report on the effects of the Fleadh, the majority of the commentariat struggles with an analysis of historical developments that have brought us […]
UK consumer price inflation, the relevant measure for the North’s economy, was at 2.6% in June, down from 2.8% in May. Food inflation was just 1.7%, below the rates experienced during the 2022–2024 inflationary spike. The inflation rate has fallen, but the general price level remains roughly 30% above where […]
Havana, 7-8th of August 2026 “Maidin mhaith a gcomradaithe, Buenos días camaradas, Good morning comrades.” Pól Mac Phádraig Communist Party of Ireland National Political Committee National Executive Committee International Secretary It is an honour to be amongst Communists here in Havana at such a critical time for the Cuban Revolution. […]
In the spring of 1920, as the young Soviet Republic struggled for survival amid internal and external siege, Lenin penned “Left-Wing” Communism: An Infantile Disorder. The pamphlet took aim precisely at those West European communists who considered themselves “more Left” than the Bolsheviks. Lenin pointed out that this “Left-wing” infantilism “regards […]
“In my opinion, the greatest act of treachery ever perpetrated by the Free State Government was when De Valera brought over to Ireland the British hangman Albert Pierrepoint, who just a few years previously had hanged three other Irishmen – Barnes, McCormack and Tom Williams – to hang another soldier […]
The Irish political and military establishments, state bureaucracy, mass media and numerous “think tanks” continue in their carefully crafted strategy to end the neutrality of this state and turn our country into an unsinkable platform for NATO. They want this state to be the new poster boy for NATO. The […]
The Irish people are broadly ‘left-wing’ when we look at support for typically social-democratic or socialist positions on things like collective bargaining, housing, healthcare, neutrality and transport. Yet combinations of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael continue to be elected and form Governments who actively deliver against these popular positions time […]
This is the second in a five-part series on the politics of power. The first asked what makes rights and freedoms real. This article examines what happens when they come into conflict. Consider a home. To the person living in it, whether tenant or owner-occupier, it is somewhere to live […]
On 29 August 2026, Icelanders rejected EU accession by 52.8% to 47.2%, on an extraordinary 82.5% turnout. The verdict was a decisive rejection of Brussels’ neoliberal discipline and the erosion of national sovereignty—a rejection that carries profound lessons for Ireland. Iceland’s EU path has been ambivalent. It applied in 2009 […]
In May of this year, the Minister for Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation, Jack Chambers, TD, published details of an enhanced expenditure control and escalation process to curb what was described as out-of-control spending. It was stated by the Minister that spending was already over the 6% […]
There is a long history of powerful, dominant states practising what we might describe as defining or controlling the narrative. This is done by steering public opinion so that one specific interpretation becomes dominant within society. The objective is to ensure that those in power retain their position by building […]
In many bourgeois liberal democracies, analysts have become anxious about the “crisis of democracy” – i.e. the loss of support for the traditional parties. Some commentators look outside the system and blame interference by Russian and Chinese state agencies. More realistic defenders of bourgeois democracy locate the crisis within the […]
Havana, 7-8th of August 2026 “Maidin mhaith a gcomradaithe, Buenos días camaradas, Good morning comrades.” Pól Mac Phádraig Communist Party of Ireland National Political Committee National Executive Committee International Secretary It is an honour to be amongst Communists here in Havana at such a critical time for the Cuban Revolution. […]
The cost-of-living crisis has not disappeared and is set to get worse over the coming year. Prices are far above their 2021 level and the next pressure is likely to come again through essentials: energy, food, clothing, transport, heating and housing. These basics are already up multiples of wage increases […]
Speech delivered by Miguel Mario Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba and President of the Republic, at the closing of the XXIV International Meeting of Communist and Workers’ Parties, at the Convention Palace, on August 8, 2026, Year of the Centenary of […]
Meabhrú, athrá agus crácamas – na trí haspal de chúrsa na hArdteiste. Tá sé soiléir go bhfuil an córasoideachais in Éirinn seanfhaiseanta – nach bhfuil sé in am é a athrú? Ar fud na tíre feictear easpa múinteoirí agus acmhainní oideachasúla, chomh maith le scoláirí traochta tar éis seacht n-uaire […]
The 450th anniversary of Titian’s death on 27 August 1576 offers an opportunity to revisit a Venetian master whose long career coincided with the emergence of early capitalism. His seventy-year creative life spanned almost three-quarters of the sixteenth century, a period of profound social transformation. His art reflects both the […]
The cost-of-living crisis has not disappeared and is set to get worse over the coming year. Prices are far above their 2021 level and the next pressure is likely to come again through essentials: energy, food, clothing, transport, heating and housing. These basics are already up multiples of wage increases […]
Speech delivered by Miguel Mario Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba and President of the Republic, at the closing of the XXIV International Meeting of Communist and Workers’ Parties, at the Convention Palace, on August 8, 2026, Year of the Centenary of […]
The previous public sector pay deal, Public Service Agreement, delivered 10.25% pay increases over effectively 3 years in 7 phased payments plus a local bargaining payment of 1% to be agreed by the sectors within the public service. This final element, meant to provide for local bargaining to resolve specific […]
Football is the global language of ordinary people. It is played on any suitable surface (and many unsuitable surfaces) by working people in every corner of the world. But the World Cup stands above this mass, democratic experience, a political and economic spectacle, a plaything of FIFA, multinational corporations, broadcasters […]
Growing up during the cold war, China was a distant, mysterious, menacing spectre. During my new left years, during the cultural revolution, China became a beacon of possibility, when masses seemed to be examining the foundations of knowledge and pushing at the boundaries of the social order. Then it seemed […]
My first car was a 1990 Mitsubishi Colt, which I picked up for €500. Although I did not love it at the time, I have recently been reminiscing about it. With comfortable seats, an ergonomic design and a reliable engine, I even remember the smooth motion of the door as […]
Recent reports on the Irish economy show that Modified Domestic Demand, a better estimate of economic activity than Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in Ireland because it strips out some of the distortions caused by foreign multinational activity, rose by 0.3% between Q4 2025 and Q1 2026, spurred by personal spending […]
The 22-point ‘manifesto’ of the Epstein class has been floated by Alex Karp, the CEO of the tech giant Palantir—the company that provided the AI system called Movan Smart Systems, which killed 167 children in a girls’ school during the Iran war and helped orchestrate the genocide in Gaza. The […]
Across Ireland, north and south, immigration has become one of the defining political issues of recent years. From the racist violence witnessed in Belfast to protests outside accommodation centres and anti-immigration demonstrations across the country, a familiar political argument is repeatedly advanced. Migrants are blamed for housing shortages, overstretched public […]
St Petersburg (Leningrad), 2026 – If you are considering visiting Russia, let’s cut through the Western media noise: I would genuinely recommend travelling. It is rewarding, eye-opening and surprisingly easy, with one genuine headache: Western bank cards. Before we left, we secured our visa online in under five days – […]
A question for our readers. Is the Trump presidency an aberration in an otherwise properly functioning governmental structure, or is this bizarre regime symptomatic of a deeper malaise? Let us examine the situation. Donald Trump is an obnoxious, unscrupulous, vainglorious, unprincipled thug. He is also a convicted felon who, as […]
Elbridge Colby, the US Under Secretary of War for Policy, took to Twitter in April to celebrate the EU stepping up to the plate, declaring that “NATO must no longer be a paper tiger”. He said: “Germany is now taking the leading role in this. After years of disarmament, Berlin […]
This is the first in a five-part series on the politics of power. It begins by asking what makes rights and freedoms real. Later articles will examine the hierarchy among them, the machinery that sustains it, its international organisation through imperialism and dependency, and how working people can build counter-power. […]
In this sprawling epic, Christopher Nolan takes Odysseus, the Trojan War veteran of mythic poetry, and fashions him into the everyday used-up soldier who has survived the imperial misadventure; left living with guilt over foul deeds committed in battle, and the ache of lost and betrayed comrades. Without abandoning its […]
