Partisan • Patriotic • Internationalist
The author Anna Burns from Belfast has won the 2018 Man Booker Prize for her novel Milkman. The chairperson of the judges, the philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah, described it as “incredibly original,” saying that “none of us has ever read anything like this before.” Burns is the first winner of […]
Late in January some three hundred activists from all over Ireland gathered in Liberty Hall, Dublin, to celebrate the centenary of the first Dáil Éireann. The event, organised by the Peadar O’Donnell Socialist Republican Forum, attracted a wide range of forces, including trade union and community activists and women’s and […]
Speech by Laura Duggan at the celebration of the first Dáil Éireann26 January 2019 Partition is the political arrangement created by British imperialism as a solution to the colonial crisis caused by the Irish Revolution. Partition and its institutions serve only the interests of imperialism, and we should not invest […]
On 30 January the Irish Congress of Trade Unions held a housing conference under the banner of “Raise the Roof.” The two main demands to come out of the conference were the need for public housing and for the right to housing to be enshrined in the Constitution of Ireland. […]
In this series on the Capitalist Illusion I have tried to expose as clearly and plainly as possible the exploitative class nature of the capitalist system at the level of both the individual worker and internationally. The next task is to clearly understand how all this is facilitated within borders, […]
I used to own an Alsatian dog. He was very partial to a dog biscuit called Bonios. When I first heard that Paul Hewson was known as “Bono” I was unable to dissociate him from the dog biscuit. He used to hang around Grafton Street in Dublin with the other […]
Robert NavanVenezuela-Ireland Network “Make the economy scream” was Richard Nixon’s instruction to the CIA when the United States decided in 1973 to overthrow the democratically elected government of Salvador Allende in Chile. Other countries in Latin America have seen democratically elected leaders ousted by the United States or its proxies. […]
A plaque to the memory of the Kildare communist Frank Conroy, killed in Spain while fighting with the International Brigades, will be unveiled in June in Kilcullen Heritage Centre, Co. Kildare, by Christy Moore. Frank Conroy was born on 25 February 1914 in Kilcullen and was killed on 28 December […]
There is a lot more fiction than fact in the Brexit debate, the smoke and mirrors being created by the establishment here, in Britain, and in the EU. The Government are up to their necks in the propaganda war, and have failed to deal with Brexit in Ireland’s interest. Instead […]
“Oh, words are lightly spoken, said Pearse to Connolly.” This is a line from W. B. Yeats’s poem “The Rose Tree.” It is not, though, something always practised by the establishment in our 26-county republic. Their words are carefully chosen to deliver a message. Moreover, what they say and how […]
On 1 March 2019 the Employment (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act (2017) will come into effect. This is to be welcomed; it is a step in the right direction for workers’ rights. We must always be aware that we are up against a formidable enemy in capitalism. The nature of capitalism is […]
Much has been written and will be written about the establishment of Dáil Éireann in January 1919 and its adoption of the Democratic Programme. That programme offered the people a vision of a better and more just Ireland, presented as a natural progression from the Proclamation of the Irish Republic […]
In much of the Western world the period immediately following the Second World War saw major changes in the nature of capitalist economic management and planning. In response to the threats of renewed economic depression and of socialism (from both within and without), several of the major capitalist states expanded […]
The British ruling class is divided over the Brexit issue. That much is clear. Not so obvious, though, is the underlying cause of this split. Among the jingoistic fringe there is a hankering after the glory days of empire. Reared to believe that the sun was never supposed to set […]
There has been a lot of spin about the recent eviction in Co. Roscommon. The fact of the matter is that the Central Bank stated in April 2018 that more than 29,000 mortgages are in arrears for at least two years. It estimates that more than half of these will […]
The Anthropocene is the term used to describe the geological period in which human activity has been the main determining factor in the Earth System. This influence has been overwhelmingly negative and has led the Earth into its sixth great extinction event. While capitalism will portray this as the fault […]
The New Year and the annual (temporary) surge in gym membership, attendance at diet groups and body-shaming begins anew. In the coming days and weeks women (and, increasingly, men) will be cajoled or bullied by television programmes, magazine covers, newspaper articles and advertisers to lose a dress or trouser size, […]
The past year or two have seen a number of big developments in the working life of technology and game workers. It seems now that there is a global push from these workers to be organised collectively and to have their voice heard on such things as contract insecurity, sexual […]
The Ministry of Public Health of the Republic of Cuba, committed to the solidarity and humanistic principles that have guided Cuba’s medical co-operation for fifty-five years, has been participating in the programme More Doctors for Brazil since its inception in August 2013. This initiative, launched by Dilma Rousseff, who was […]
This year is the sixtieth anniversary of the victory of the Cuban Revolution in 1959. Fidel Castro declared at the time: “Tyranny has been overthrown. The joy is immense. And yet, much remains to be done.” Despite the decades-long blockade imposed on Cuba by the United States, and its long […]
Palestinians have called on members of the European Broadcasting Union to boycott the 2019 Eurovision Song Contest if it is hosted by Israel, regardless of where it is held.
Russian cinema today explores capitalism against the backdrop of a past socialist experience. Open-minded visitors to former socialist states, and particularly to Russia, will come across this living memory and frequently an acknowledgement of the loss of humanist values since the defeat of socialism in Europe. It is interesting too, […]
