Partisan • Patriotic • Internationalist
“The world has never seen greater devotion, determination and self-sacrifice than have been displayed by the Russian people… …With a nation that in saving itself is thereby helping to save all the world from the Nazi menace, this country of ours should always be glad to be a good neighbour and a sincere friend to the world of the future.”
— Franklin Roosevelt, (president of the United States), 28 July 1943.
There is always profit to be made in war; and the war in Ukraine is no different. The warmongering weapons manufacturers, such as Lockheed Martin, Rheinmetall, Raytheon, and BAE Systems, will not spare any casualties if there is a profit to be made. The blood of war fuels the profits […]
The recent exhaustive celebrations of Michael Collins’s life were selective and tendentious. There was very little mention of his campaign against Dublin Castle’s G men and British intelligence but heavy emphasis on his role in negotiating the Treaty and founding the Free State. In reality, the centenary events were an […]
For months the media have been full of stories about the cost-of-living crisis, the climate crisis, the housing crisis, and the crisis in the health service. The Government has laid the blame on the world economy, or on supply-line issues, either as a result of the pandemic or of the […]
The British and Irish media have been singing the praises of Field-Marshal (retired) Henry Wilson, assassinated outside his home in London on 22 June 1922 by two members of the IRA, seemingly on the orders of the IRB (i.e. Michael Collins). Wilson was a former chief of staff of British […]
A call to action for communist and progressive trade unionists The cost-of-living crisis—or, as the CPI more accurately describes it, the cost of greed—is now hitting working people hard throughout the country. It is time for clear demands from the trade union movement, and the leadership to win. But rest […]
Lithium is the lightest known metal, for which the heaviest competition for possession may occur in the future. In the capitalist mode of production, human wants and necessities are converted into commodities: that is, use values are made to go through an exchange value system, through markets, with profit as […]
The housing crisis will not be solved by treating the symptoms. The root cause—the Government’s political strategy of transferring the provision of homes to the private sector—is the problem that has to be tackled if we are to solve this crisis permanently. This requires a sustained national building campaign by […]
The recent visit of the speaker of the US House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, to Taiwan has sharply increased the prospect of war in the region. The Chinese government and people strongly believe Taiwan to be their territory; and the no. 3 official in the US government visiting Taiwan is […]
Farm vehicles blockading motorways, burning haystacks on hard shoulders, and heaps of manure at the house of parliament—these images from the farmers’ protests in the Netherlands have been broadcast around the world. The recent reports of nitrogen excesses, and the magnitude by which it needs to be reduced, have struck […]
As many people know, Brazil will face its first round of federal elections on 2 October, after being ruled by the far right for four years. The event is characterised by a huge polarisation that is widely discussed by people and poorly discussed by the candidates (at least those who […]
Elections cause even the most docile of people to become excited. It really is a circus. But the human reality is that it is deadly serious for those who are trying to survive in life. And this is true in 95 per cent of the world. Worse than that, there […]
Cimavax-EGF, a Cuban therapeutic vaccine for the treatment of lung cancer, conquers the scientific community and the population of the United States on the basis of the achievements compiled in studies carried out. The vaccine was obtained after more than twenty years of research and has shown satisfactory results in […]
Margaret Ward’s ground-breaking book on revolutionary women in Ireland, Unmanageable Revolutionaries: Women and Irish Nationalism, 1880–1980 (1983), was republished in an updated, revised and richly illustrated new edition by Arlen House in late 2021. It is a superb introduction to some of the great women in Irish history since Anna […]
The singer-songwriter Sive got a surprise at the 2018 James Connolly Festival when Christy Moore took to the stage at the concert Sive was headlining to give an impromptu performance of four songs, including “Viva la Quince Brigada.” Sive played an amazing acoustic set at “Live at the Local” in […]
In mid-September the Communist Party of Ireland will hold its 26th National Congress in Dublin. Delegates from around the country will discuss, debate and vote upon a political resolution and a new constitution for the CPI. The highest authority of the CPI is its national congress, which takes place every […]
The severe drought affecting many regions of Europe since the beginning of the year has been further expanding and worsening. Dry conditions are related to a wide and persistent lack of precipitation—rain and snow—combined with a sequence of heat waves from May onwards. The severe precipitation deficit has affected river […]
Not too long ago I found myself in Rathdrum, a beautiful town in Co. Wicklow. While I had a lovely time, I noticed that a lot of buildings were vacant, with areas of the town centre feeling deserted at times. Unfortunately, Rathdrum is not unique in this regard. Ireland has […]
The world still applauds the great effort that our government made in advocating negotiations for peace that led to a settlement, and the 1998 Good Friday Agreement on this island. So why is our present government rejecting neutrality and refusing to lead the campaign for negotiations for peace to […]
A small group of individuals of different origins, with dissimilar professional results, most of them residing outside Cuba, claim they represent the entire Cuban intellectual community, of millions of people who speak loud and clear for ourselves. The website La Joven Cuba serves as their voice, because their text is […]
Statement by the National Executive Committee, Communist Party of Ireland Today the world is closer to global war than at any time since 1962. The two largest countries in Europe are at war. The immediate cause of this situation has been the expansion of NATO and its project to constrict […]
Listen to the latest episode of
The Irish Spark Podcast
Anyone who is politically active knows the importance of reading—and knows the weight of books one ought to have read. It is easy to become overwhelmed with the sheer volume of works to be read and the knowledge to acquire and process, and not only from weighty political tomes. For […]
As every worker knows, the cost of living is spiralling far beyond pay increases. More and more working families have their backs against the wall, trying to survive. In particular, the cost of energy has been rising for the last eighteen months or more, which has been added to from […]
On the 1st of February this year the Cuban government began drafting a new family code for the country’s constitution. This new family code will change how the state sees a family, which will broaden rights for many citizens, including children and the LGBTQ+ community. The drafting of the new […]
At the end of July the Communist Party of Ireland participated in an on-line International Marxist Parties Forum organised by the Communist Party of China. The theme of the forum was “Adapting Marxism to the National Conditions and the Times of the 21st Century.” The CPI was represented by Eugene […]
This is an old story that is told in Marxist circles, still relevant, and never loses its novelty. It’s a conversation between a little girl and her mother during a cold winter evening in London when the father has not returned after going out in search of a job. The […]
Two bilingual tanka, in Irish and English, “Hail the Deserters” and “Weeping in their Graves,” 31-syllable poems (5-7-5-7-7), in response to work by two Irish artists, William Orpen and Seán Keating. When the First World War broke out, Orpen’s assistant, Seán Keating, returned to Ireland, avoiding conscription, but Orpen stayed […]
…a profit of €4,193 per worker. Coincidentally, Go-Ahead Bus pay their drivers €4,000 per year less than Dublin Bus pay theirs…
In the 26 Counties there is a housing crisis, a shamefully inadequate two-tier health service, a decrepit public transport system, and a grave shortage of affordable accommodation for third-level students. As always, the impact of this failure by the state is felt most acutely by working people. It raises the […]
In the official ideology of the Irish state, the Industrial Development Authority comes in for special praise as one of the main agencies that helped “modernise” the Irish economy—i.e. opened it up to penetration by foreign, mostly American, capital. It has been lauded as a latter-day David that outfought Goliath […]
In the July Voice, Nicola Lawlor proposed that “individual unions should concentrate on… strengthening themselves and militantly pursuing big pay claims.” She argues that unions should not be “remov[ed from] pay bargaining [at the workplace] site of struggle and mobilisation.” Localised bargaining is “an instrument… for increasing class-consciousness and militancy […]
Students of the coup d’état of 1922 will be interested in the following letter, which appeared in the Freeman’s Journal of 5 August 1922 under the headline “Irregulars’ Eager Allies | Policy of the Communist Party of Ireland.” The following excerpts from The Workers’ Republic of 28th July—the “official organ […]
It is often said that to know how things work you need to live that experience. Over the last number of years, be it on my holidays in the occupied Six Counties or listening to friends and family, I have heard so many stories of a system that isn’t working […]
On Saturday 25 June members and comrades of the CPI joined a protest organised by the Connolly Youth Movement on Rosie Hackett Bridge to protest against the take-over of pride by companies that solely see us as a means to profit, by people who have historically oppressed LGBT minorities and […]
This month Connolly Books will play host to two book launches. On 15 July, at 7pm, Conor Magahy will launch his first book, Posh Mackers, a moving and at times humorous account of his early childhood in Dublin, set between the years 1978 and 1988. It tells the story […]
The short life of Sidney Keyes (1922–1943) is in itself a striking metaphor for the cruelty and futility of war. He was killed in action before his twenty-first birthday in Tunisia. His book The Cruel Solstice (1944) can be read on Faded Page (tinyurl.com/4282dd4u). Keyes was an unusual poet, […]
Engels said about Shelley: “Byron and Shelley are read almost exclusively by the lower classes; no ‘respectable’ man is likely to have the latter’s work on his table without coming into the most terrible disrepute.” Born shortly after the French Revolution, Shelley was heir to a substantial estate and […]
