Partisan • Patriotic • Internationalist
Originally a poem by the great Turkish poet Nazim Hikmet and translated into English by Jeannette Turner. Here Gabriel Rosenstock translates Pete Seeger’s version of this great antiwar song (https://tinyurl.com/pnyykae). Im’ sheasamh ar gach tairseach bím Im’ sheasamh ar gach tairseach bím Ní chloistear áfach mo choiscéim An […]
Robert Tressell’s book The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists is the first important working-class novel in English literature, written between 1906 and 1910 and first published posthumously, and very abridged, in 1914. The working class has championed this novel about their experience and written from their own point-of-view like no other working-class novel […]
Georgi Dimitrov led the Communist International from 1934 to 1943. During that time, he contributed to the Communist understanding of fascism, more so than any other Marxist theorist. Dimitrov outlined the origins and purpose of fascism as well as the strategy the Communist movement had to adopt in order to […]
Statement by the Communist Party of Ireland 13 July 2018 The Communist Party of Ireland welcomes the passing by the Seanad of the Control of Economic Activity (Occupied Territories) Bill, introduced by the independent senator Frances Black. The vote of 25 in favour and 20 against is an important and […]
Statement by the Communist Party of Israel The need today is to strengthen the unity of the Palestinian citizens’ struggle and, forming the widest Jewish-Arab front to fight Fascism. The Communist Party of Israel considers the “Basic Law: Israel – the Nation State of the Jewish People”, a serious […]
We have reached the end of history: at least as far as the junior certificate cycle is concerned. Following the revamp of the Junior Cert model history will no longer be a compulsory subject with only English, Irish and Mathematics remaining mandatory. Though this has been sold as “giving the […]
“The peoples of the world do not want a repetition of the scourge of war.” Psychology has a complicated relationship with the world at large, often seen as something to be a bit wary of. Like nuclear engineering it has the ring of something easily corrupted and dangerous about […]
Let’s hear it for the Donald. A round of applause for the great educator. In the face of criticism, ridicule and condemnation, the US president crossed the Atlantic and delivered a virtuoso performance. No other occupant of the Oval Office has visited Europe and provided such a clear and unambiguous […]
Cork Branch, Connolly Youth Movement Members of the Connolly Youth Movement (CYM) had inhabited two buildings, dubbed Kent House and Mellows House, to highlight the ongoing housing crisis. The six residents had been living there for over two months. However, on July 24, a worker of the maintenance group […]
A bill is at present going through Dáil Éireann that would allow the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform to increase the retirement age for public servants to 70 years of age. The bill will allow a future minister the option of increasing the compulsory retirement age to 75. This […]
Paddy Power workers awarded €750-€1,000 each for denial of rest breaks Fourteen Mandate members employed by Paddy Power Betfair Plc have been awarded between €750 and €1000 each by the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) for the denial of rest breaks. The workers, through their Union, successfully took the cases under […]
There is no doubt that, with our ever-expanding capital city, public transport needs to be continually expanded and improved to meet the ever changing requirements of a modern city. Typical of our gombeen political class instead of improving and expanding the bus service continuously, the system is neglected, under funded […]
Statement by the Communist Party of Ireland 24 July 2018 The Communist Party of Ireland notes with interest the comments made by the minister for housing, Eoghan Murphy, when addressing the media. He admitted that the rent of a two-bedroom apartment in the proposed “cost-rental” development at St Michael’s Estate, […]
A recent article in Socialist Voice made a powerful case for addressing the inequities of the Industrial Relations Act 1990. As the article identifies, the Act is an anti-union measure. Indeed, it might be said that Bertie Ahern achieved in one act what it took Thatcher and Major to do […]
The chief executive officer of Amazon, Jeff Bezos, has been declared the richest person in modern history, with a personal fortune of €152 billion. This massive accumulation of wealth did not just appear in his bank account or property portfolio: it was created by the labour of others, coupled with […]
The crisis of the capitalist economic system continues to grow, and the imposition of limited tariffs on steel imports etc. by the United States is just another symptom of this deepening crisis. The reaction of the liberal establishment in the European Union shows clearly its weakness in relation to the […]
Soviet sniper Lyudmila Pavlichenko was credited with killing 309 fascist invaders With the Trump government in the United States turning an already opaque and Kafkaesque machinery of violence against the marginalised into a more overt American fascism, and the rise of the far right throughout Europe, mechanisms of resistance have […]
Fórsa, the biggest public-sector union, is in existence since January 2018, but already workers’ rights are under attack. The CEO of Roscommon County Council launched the attack on the issue of flex time. This is not a simple local issue but a challenge to trade unions and workers’ rights in […]
Industrial relations law often works on the assumption that both sides of a dispute are reasonable entities: employers won’t exploit or take advantage of their workers, and in return the workers won’t ask for “too much”; and, just in case, we have trade unions to try to keep the playing-pitch […]
A very interesting talk on Ireland’s Basque refugees during the Spanish Civil War was given by the political activist Stewart Reddin at the Ubh café in Droichead Nua (Newbridge), Co. Kildare, on Saturday 16 June, as part of June Fest. The café was packed for the talk, with part of […]
A number of events in late June must raise serious concerns regarding the direction in which this state and its political establishment are going, and wish to bring us. Firstly there is the appointment of a former deputy chief constable of the PSNI as commissioner of the Garda Síochána. Relatives […]
While speaking recently in Germany, the left-leaning economist and former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis described Ireland as a tax haven, “free-riding” on the rest of Europe. Coincidentally, within a few days of his address to the IFO Institute for Economic Research in Munich1 two of Europe’s most powerful right-wing […]
The Industrial Relations Act (1990) was introduced on 18 July 1990, replacing the Trade Disputes Act (1906), the main principle of which was that anything done in a trade dispute, provided it was not illegal in itself, would be free from criminal and civil liability. The 1990 act was introduced […]
The European Union’s crisis of legitimacy continues to develop, as do the attempts by those elements that call themselves the “liberal centre”—that is, those political parties and the economic interests they serve that are central to the EU’s further integration and are attempting to use that crisis to mask their […]
30 July 2018 is the 200th anniversary of Emily Brontë’s birth. Her singular novel, Wuthering Heights (1847), challenges class society in an amazing way. In the mid-1840s England was in the throes of the Industrial Revolution, as described by Engels in The Condition of the Working Class in England (1845). […]
When global authorities, including the United Nations, insisted that it was impossible, because of dangerous conditions and sanctions, to provide aid to the people of war-torn Syria, a group of courageous people from Switzerland achieved the “impossible.” The following is an extract from a report written by Eva Heizmann and […]
With demographic change, Brexit, and a deadlocked Northern Ireland Assembly, the call for a border poll has been raised more and more often. Under the terms of the Belfast Agreement, a border poll is the only way partition can be ended. It can be allowed to happen only if the […]
