Partisan • Patriotic • Internationalist
■ Patrick Magee, Where Grieving Begins: Building Bridges after the Brighton Bomb (London: Pluto Press, 2021) Patrick Magee’s memoir is an insight into both his personal history and what was for decades the harsh experience of life for Northern Ireland’s non-unionist community. Although he will forever be identified with the […]
One of Sergei Prokofiev’s most famous compositions is Peter and the Wolf (1936). Natalya Sats, then director of the Moscow Musical Theatre for Children, had commissioned this work to introduce children to some of the instruments of the orchestra, and to classical music. Prokofiev had met Sats while taking his […]
The 8th of March each year has continued to grow in popularity around the world as a day on which to recognise and celebrate women in general. But this increase in popularity stems from a growing disconnection from the radical socialist roots of what was once widely known as International […]
Manchán Magan, Thirty-Two Words for Field (Dublin: Gill Books, 2020). This acclaimed book ostensibly celebrates the Irish-speaking community in Co. Kerry, where the author spent his holidays as a young man. He explores the rich vocabulary of traditional Irish-speakers and their words for natural phenomena: the weather, the sea, plants, […]
The 150th birthday of Rosa Luxemburg On 5 March 2021 we celebrate the 150th anniversary of Rosa Luxemburg’s birth. No-one who wishes to get a sense of Rosa Luxemburg as a person, both political and private, will regret watching Margarethe von Trotta’s meticulously researched film of the same name, made […]
The upper limit of a transformative wage demand A transformative strategy is “a means by which to expose the antagonistic contradictions between capitalism and the working class and, in so doing, to undermine capitalism and present the potential for a socialist alternative.”¹ While an increase in the minimum wage from […]
Just as it did with St Patrick’s Day, the state has decided to take over the 1st of February—the beginning of spring, traditionally known as St Brigid’s Day—and convert it into another cheap stunt for promoting tourism and “selling Ireland.” (The only wonder is that there’s anything left to sell.) […]
Scientists and environmentalists, decades ago, warned the world of an impending global pandemic. Those in the corridors of power who paid no heed to it are now surprised and shocked. Scientists have raised the alarm over a greater catastrophe endangering our very survival on this
George Bernard Shaw wrote: “Keats achieved the very curious feat of writing a poem of which it may be said that if Karl Marx can be imagined writing a poem instead of a treatise on Capital, he would have written Isabella.” The 200th anniversary of Keats’s death this month is an opportunity to celebrate this revolutionary romantic.
One of the defining marks of a colony (or neo-colony) is its adoption of the ideology, and especially the language, of the conqueror.
In 2008 the inventor of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto, expressed his view that “the root problem with conventional currencies is all the trust that’s required to make it work. The central bank must be trusted not to debase the currency, but the history of fiat currencies is full of breaches of that trust.”¹ This is an old right-wing libertarian talking-point: “When the state spends money to achieve social aims, it devalues money in general, which is an attack on people with lots of money.”
THERE HAS been a lot of discussion lately in left circles about the relationship between the Connolly Youth Movement and the Communist Party of Ireland, a relationship, it must be said, that is going through a difficult time at the moment.
In an attempt to give some context and to clarify some historical aspects of the relationship, Socialist Voice asked Seán Edwards (CPI international convenor and a founder-member of the CYM) and Eddie Glackin (CPI education convenor and a former general secretary of the CYM) for their recollections of the formation and early years of the CYM and its relationship with the party.
Sinn Fein published their discussion document “Economic Benefits of a United Ireland”1 in November 2020; and, seeing that it’s a discussion paper for “contributing to the ongoing and exciting debate around a United Ireland,” it’s a worthwhile exercise to analyse and to critically engage with Sinn Féin’s vision for a united Ireland.
Two significant factors, Brexit and covid-19, have really accelerated the debate on reunification; and now, as stated in the document, “it is not a question about whether we can afford Irish Unity the fact is that we
Over recent years a discernible pattern has been emerging in many of those countries that the BBC likes to describe as “parliamentary democracies.” Long-established precedents are being flouted by elected power-brokers in the leading capitalist states. While those who govern on behalf of capitalism have never been reluctant to subvert […]
About 66,500 companies received a total of €2. 9 billion from the now-expired temporary wage subsidy scheme. The state paid out €2.9 billion of public money to mostly private companies to pay the wages of 664,000 employees; and that extraordinary news made the headlines for about eighteen hours. After that […]
The outbreak of covid-19 has exposed the glaring inequality in housing, health, education and work in Ireland and around the so-called “developed world.” This has led to renewed calls from some quarters for a universal basic income for all citizens. Some of those proposing this are well intentioned and believe […]