National wage agreements with a private-sector aspect may re-emerge, given the current social costs of capitalism (the “cost-of-living crisis”). Within the CPI contributors have put forward hostile assessments of wage agreements—see Jimmy Doran, “Social partnership? No, thanks” (Socialist Voice, July 2020) or “Talk given by Graham Harrington from the Communist […]
Month: June 2022
Housing: Crisis caused by design
This is not the first time the citizens of Ireland have been faced with a housing emergency. Back in the 1930s and 40s it was solved by building public housing—and it can be done again. From the 1930s until the 1950s, 55 per cent of all housing was built by […]
Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael: Marching in step
We are living in difficult and dangerous times, with every chance that things may get worse. Global inflation is driving up the cost of living, the impact of which is felt most severely in working-class communities. Against this backdrop of economic hardship there looms the spectre of war in Ukraine […]
LGBTQ: A united struggle
On 27 June 1974 ten brave souls marched from the Department of Justice in St Stephen’s Green to the British embassy in Merrion Road to highlight the criminalisation of homosexuality in Ireland. This was Dublin’s first pride march. The laws they marched against were the Offences Against the Person Act […]
On another man’s wound
In a Facebook post on 13 May condemning the Israeli military’s attack on the funeral of the murdered Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, the Connolly Youth Movement made the following claim: “As Irish Republicans we know what it is like to be harassed and attacked while mourning our dead.” During […]
Tourism killing Irish-language communities
“Is it hard to see death when it is disguised and tricked out in the surface trappings of life?” John Healy, Death of an Irish Town. If most Irish people think of the country’s Irish-speaking regions in Cos. Donegal, Galway and Kerry at all, they largely think of them in […]
Workers’ world
On 12 May the Local Authority Professional Officers’ (LAPO) section of SIPTU adopted a motion calling for a constitutional referendum to enshrine public ownership of water services in the Constitution of Ireland, to counter the threat of the privatisation of water services. LAPO organises approximately 2,000 local authority professional officers […]
James Connolly Festival, 2022
In 2022 the James Connolly Festival returned to in-person meetings following disruptions forced upon us through covid restrictions over the past two years. Nearly all events attracted a full house, and this year the festival consolidated itself as an important cultural and political event in the Irish political calendar. The […]
POETRY: Crossroads
CrossroadsIreland during the Civil War, 1922–23by Úna Ní Fhaircheallaigh (1874–1957)Translated from the Irish by Gabriel Rosenstock How mysterious, this road ahead, Behind me, a road of desolation. Roads to the left and the right of me— Whither now, Lord of Creation? My feet can hardly carry me, Empty hands, my […]
Georg Weerth | A young revolutionary in nineteenth century England
Weerth, the German proletariat’s first and most important poet, the son of Rhineland parents, was born in Detmold, where his father was church superintendent. In 1843, when I was in Manchester, Weerth came to Bradford as an agent for his German firm, and we spent many a pleasant Sunday together. […]
May Day in Havana: International Solidarity Brigade, 2022
From Havana to Santiago de Cuba, the revolutionary people of Cuba are an inspirational force, struggling against the effects of the US blockade on their beautiful country. Living under the blockade is having a seriously detrimental effect on the day-today lives of Cuban people. The United States has blocked trade […]
Imperialism is incompatible with humanism
The New York Times has published a “revelation” about the involvement of French and US imperialism in Haiti, the poorest country in the western hemisphere. Imperialism in form can change from time to time, but in essence it is the extraction of surplus value. During the colonial period the force […]
The first woman in space
On 16 June 1963, only two years after Yuri Gagarin became the first man in space, Valentina Tereshkova made world history and became the first woman in space. This was during the height of the Cold War and during the space race, in which the Soviet Union achieved tremendous feats, […]
Assembly elections: Opening new opportunities for struggle
A historic step forward was taken on the road to Irish freedom when the nationalist party Sinn Féin won more seats in the recent Northern Ireland Assembly than the pro-British Democratic Unionist Party. Sinn Féin secured 29 per cent of the popular vote, to become the largest party, with 27 […]