Partisan • Patriotic • Internationalist
“The job of the media is not to provide as much meaningful information as possible to the people so they can exercise their free judgment; it is to package certain information in a way to guide the people to a preferred conclusion.”
— Robert Parry, Consortium News, 24 June 2017.
Low pay is defined by the OECD as the pay of a full-time worker whose earnings are below two-thirds of a country’s median income. The proportion of workers on low pay ranges from 4 per cent in Belgium to 24 per cent in the United States. The Republic, at 23 […]
The housing crisis has laid bare the ruthless nature of capitalism, its parasitic and exploitative nature. There is simply no lengths it will not go to to secure its interests, to secure profits and the further accumulation of capital. But the housing crisis has exposed not only the real nature […]
“Yes, friends, governments in capitalist society are but committees of the rich to manage the affairs of the capitalist class.” James Connolly The earliest recorded form of government is said to have been that of the Sumerians in fourth-century Mesopotamia (Iraq). This development led, in the fifth century in Athens, […]
A pension propaganda war has broken out, with selective leaks from the soon-to-be published report of the Pension Commission. The first leak suggested that the increase in pension age to 67 and 68 would be delayed by seven years. This was followed by a suggestion in the submission of the […]
On the 6th of October, at 1 p.m., the #BetterMaternityCare Campaign will be assembling outside Leinster House with the aim of ending the restrictions on birth partners’ access in maternity hospitals. While this campaign and associated groups, such as AIMS, have been raising awareness about the impact of covid-19 restrictions […]
Professor Geraldine McCarthy, chairperson of the board of the South and South-West Hospital Group, has become the third senior health figure to resign, following the departure of two other senior officials from the government’s Sláintecare reform scheme. The three lay the blame on the government’s continuing failure to implement reforms […]
The trade union movement is an integral part of Irish society and as such reflects how society sees women workers. It affects how the historical role of women as primary care-givers in the home can muddy the waters when it comes to equal pay, gender equality, and smashing the glass […]
Katherine Zappone’s rejection, respectful or otherwise, of an invitation to appear before an Oireachtas committee investigating her irregular appointment was symptomatic of a wider phenomenon. It was an example of a sense of entitlement shared by all those in the well-to-do strata of this, our class-bound, class-divided society. This is […]
Voters in Berlin have voted to expropriate large institutional landlords in a non-binding referendum that shows the fury Berliners have with rising rents and falling conditions. As part of the “Deutsche Wohnen & Co. enteignen” campaign, which targeted Deutsche Wohnen, a company listed on the stock exchange, and other international […]
Summer of Soul (or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised) is a documentary film directed by Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson about the legendary Harlem Cultural Festival in 1969. It had its premiere on 28 January 2021 at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. More than forty thousand people […]
A lot of decent people believed that when Donald Trump was voted out of office and replaced by Joe Biden things would change for the better in the United States. The left-liberals, Sanders and others, even believed that Biden would lean to the left and that there would be a […]
Victor Klemperer is remembered for his seminal study of the language of the Nazis. Born the son of a rabbi on 9 October 1881 in Gorzów Wielkopolski, Poland (then called Landsberg an der Warthe in German), Klemperer grew up in Berlin, where he was baptised as a Protestant. In the […]
Three hundred days have passed and 601 lives have been martyred in the farmers’ struggle in India. The struggle continues, and so does government apathy. Three laws were forced in an undemocratic way on the farmers, without discussion or consultation with trade unions or debate in the parliament: the Farm […]
Over the past year the powers that be have succeeded in reducing any and all political debate about the government’s response to the covid-19 pandemic to the single issue of vaccines. In doing so they have pitted workers against one another, in their time-honoured tactic, and distracted attention from the […]
The Communist Party of Ireland published a statement on 13 July 2021. It can be read at the party website here.
Statement by the Communist Party of Ireland 18 June 2021 The resignation of Edwin Poots as leader of the Democratic Unionist Party, and the implosion of the DUP, should not come as a surprise to anyone with a modicum of understanding of the entrenched anti-democratic nature of unionism and the […]
The Communist Party of Ireland wants to announce, and welcomes, the establishment of a new branch in the Belfast region. The new branch will be called the Greater Belfast Branch. Its officers and branch members have the full support of the NEC and the membership of the CPI. This follows […]
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Government housing policy is the cause of the housing crisis. Homelessness, waiting-lists and extortionate private rent levels are the symptoms. Universally accessible public housing is the cure, the solution, to permanently end the housing crisis. Government housing policy works very well for those it is designed to benefit: the speculators, […]
At the beginning of September the coalition government published its long-awaited final, final, final housing strategy, “Housing for All,” to solve the deepening housing crisis. Thousands are on local authority housing lists, and tens of thousands are trapped in rising rents which are completely unsustainable from the renter’s point of […]
Last month Kathy Sheridan, writing for the Irish Times, opined about the dilemma faced by Ireland’s middle class as they agonise over whether or not to vote for Sinn Féin. The problem, it would appear, relates to the fact that while the party is promoting progressive policies, it simultaneously glorifies […]
On Wednesday 1 September 2021 the most restrictive abortion law in the United States, the Texas abortion law known as Senate Bill 8, came into effect. This bill amounts to a near-complete ban on abortion in the state. It prohibits abortion as soon as cardiac activity in the embryo is […]
There was a great discussion recently with representatives of the Protestant/loyalist community about sectarianism and its roots, among other things, and the obvious effects on people and our society. That set me thinking about potential strategies. Socialists and republicans lay the blame for sectarianism at the door of British colonialism […]
There is a sense of déjà vu in the events that took place in Afghanistan, reminding us of what happened in 1975 when the United States was defeated in Vietnam. However, the outcomes are as different as chalk and cheese. If the outcome in Vietnam was a socialist government, which […]
One would imagine that the chaotic scenes that accompanied the ending of the NATO occupation of Afghanistan would be followed by reflection and analysis in the Irish media. That was not the case. Their initial concern was the threat to women’s rights under the Taliban—and of course the threat the […]
The “epic” battle being waged—or rather being reported on in the corporate entertainment press—is between streamers and cinemas, or between various streamers. However, this is a battle now being fought not just in the United States—Netflix is already losing American subscribers to its rivals Disney+ and HBO Max—but throughout the […]
As communists we understand the importance of the trade union movement. It is, first and foremost, simply the work-place or industrial collective organisation of the working class. Its most important function is as a working-class defence against the worst ravages and exploitation of employers and bosses. It is workers coming […]
Rayner O’Connor Lysaght, who regularly attended events organised in Connolly Books, passed away on 2 July 2021 in Beaumont Hospital, Dublin, after a prolonged illness. His funeral took place at Glasnevin crematorium, the coffin draped with the Starry Plough flag. Because of illness, Áine, his wife of forty-eight years, could […]
Already the big intellectual guns of US imperialism—powerful professors and leading editorial writers—are being hauled out to tell us that there will not be a “new cold war” with China. Someone should have told the lackeys that their masters have actually increased the pace of the military, economic and ideological […]
Paper given by Philip Kelly, Greater Belfast Branch, CPI ■ Today I joined comrades from around Latin America and Europe in a meeting with the Foreign Ministry of Nicaragua. Below is the text of my contribution. Brothers and sisters, comrades of the Sandinista Revolution, I speak to you today from […]
Over the past few weeks farmers were given the opportunity to have their say in a full, nationwide consultation process concerning the recent CAP agreement. During this process a few issues cropped up. These were: During the on-line meetings farmers felt that their various questions concerning their future under the […]
Born 450 years ago, on 29 September 1571, Caravaggio lived during the Counter-Reformation. The art form of that time, with a specific political function, was the Baroque. The development of the new middle class—the bourgeoisie—brought with it the dawn of the modern, capitalist era. The artistic expression of this new […]
Poems from Prison and Life by the Spanish communist poet Marcos Ana (1920–2016), translated by David Duncombe and published by Smokestack Books, fills one with hope and despair. Hope comes from the motto found in the author’s note to the book: To live for others is the best way of […]
Work, like inequality, appears to be a permanent feature of human existence into the foreseeable future. Psychologically, humans do not feel well if they are not working. Or so the story goes. And work, as we said earlier, is continually reinforced by the language of power. “An honest day’s work […]
