To Burn or Not to Burn is a bilingual tanka (5-7-5-7-7 syllables) by Gabriel Rosenstock in response to artwork by Banksy. To Burn or Not to Burn tá sé ag éirí fuarníl mórán fágtha le dóbratach mo thíre?tar éis a bhfuil déanta aiciar mo shonsa ‘is ar son an domhain! […]
Author: Gabriel Rosenstock
A Note on Ukraine
In the March Socialist Voice, a piece on Ukraine proposed the proximate cause of the war is NATO. There are good reasons why Communists in Western European countries should highlight NATO’s role to its own populations insofar as it helps counter one-sided narratives of the conflict. However, some have also […]
On the centenary of The Shadow of a Gunman
Sean O’Casey’s play The Shadow of a Gunman premiered 100 years ago, on April 12, 1923, at the Abbey Theatre. It is set during the War of Independence in a Dublin tenement. Davoren, writer of romantic verse, shares a room with Seumas, a peddler and onetime patriot who has now […]
Policing: Something Rotten
In 1984 a baby was found dead on a beach at Caherciveen. He was murdered: stabbed 28 times. At that time Gardaí arrested a young woman and got a confession from her for the young baby’s death. It was later proven that the Gardaí forced the confession from this innocent […]
The Real Framing of the Windsor Framework
When it comes to money and power, real power, like imperial power, not Micky Mouse or parish-pump “power”, there’s always a deal to be had. Since the partition of Ireland the number of “agreements” that have been engineered and given important sounding names, would fill a thousand large skips with […]
Rathlin Poet: “The War Game”
Living on Rathlin Island, six miles from Ballycastle in North Antrim, Mary Cecil ponders life and chronicles her thoughts in poetic form. “The Rathlin Poet”, as she is known, has penned a great many poems, including anti-war verses: hardly surprising for the daughter of a soldier psychologically scarred during service […]
Varadkar Turns the Corner (part one)
The Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has said that he believes the government have now turned the corner on housing. In turning this corner, the government have turned their backs on the housing needs of the citizens of Ireland. A blatant example of this is the latest government scheme which puts Ireland […]
War and peace in a shifting global political environment
War is a slaughter, a living hell, visited first and foremost against the working class. As Lenin noted, “a bayonet is a weapon with a worker at both ends”. War too is invariably orchestrated by members of the ruling class, who are spared the peril of death or physical danger […]
Global Banking: A House of Cards
Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) collapsed last month, causing major turbulence across the world’s financial sector. Within a week of its closure, the Financial Times was reporting that the value of global bank stocks had fallen $460 billion. Fearing meltdown from contagion, state-controlled treasuries across the capitalist order made huge sums […]
Silicon Valley Bank: A Deepening Systems Crisis
Capitalism evolved from the development of trade: mercantile capitalism gave way to manufacturing capitalism which transformed into industrial capitalism after the industrial revolution, which was fueled by scientific inventions. The history of capitalism as a dominant mode of production begins in the 17th century, with Holland and England being the […]
James Connolly Festival 2023
The annual James Connolly Festival returns for its ninth year, from the 8th – 14th of May 2023. The annual week-long festival sees events in radical arts, culture, and politics take place in The New Theatre, Dublin, and across the city. It is a community-based celebration of music, film, discussion […]
British Army Memorials in Killester
Dear Editor, I refer to plans to build British Army Memorials in 2023, for example in our area, Killester, on Dublin’s north side. Many well-meaning people in this country see no harm in the numerous British War Memorials, thinking that they are just remembering the past glories of the British […]
Alex Saab and the Death of Diplomacy
Dear friends, Two years ago, we started the campaign to release Alex Saab, a Venezuelan diplomat incarcerated in a United States federal prison in Miami. Venezuela’s Special Envoy to Iran was arrested on June 12, 2020, when his plane was forced to stop in Cape Verde to refuel, local authorities […]
Poem & Tanka
“Gan Teideal” (Untitled) is an Irish-language transcreation of a poem by Marius Mason, who describes himself as a transgender anarchist, environmentalist, and animal-rights prisoner. His activities were reported to the authorities by his husband, and he was sentenced to twenty-two years’ imprisonment. Marius—a father of two—who has worked as a […]
The Banshees of Inisherin
International film awards are by no means a good film guide. And this applies to The Banshees of Inisherin as much as to the rest of them. The story is set in 1923 on an island off the west coast of Ireland (“Inisherin”—Inis Éireann), filmed in fact on Achill island […]
Dublin Communities Against Racism
On January 28th 2023 concerned about a rise in anti-refugee protests across the country, long-standing community and political activists in Dublin gathered at Leinster House under the banner of ‘Dublin Communities Against Racism’ to condemn the policies of the present and previous governments that have brought about conflict and division […]