Author: Aaron Nolan

International

CPI in Brussels

The Communist Party of Ireland, along with other activists from Ireland, recently received an invitation from MEPs Clare Daly and Mick Wallace to attend the EU Parliament in Brussels to participate in two events. First, a film showing of Ithaka, a documentary highlighting the ongoing persecution of journalist Julian Assange and the […]

Ireland

Irish decolonisation

There is nothing more foreign to Ireland than capitalism. While the primitive Irish communist system was not perfect, the feudal and capitalist systems of production were brought to this country by an English bayonet. The Irish left has struggled to understand this contradiction within Irish capitalism, instead seeing the class […]

Ireland

Marxist hedge school in the Aran Islands

There were Lord of the Rings references aplenty earlier this month as participants of all shapes and persuasions—representing organisations often refusing to openly collaborate—were ferried to the postcard setting of Inis Oírr. In between ancient ruins and tourist traps, the media platform Left Bloc, with support from Trademark (Belfast) and others, held […]

Culture Play

O’Casey’s dark comedy

Sean O’Casey’s dark comedy Cock-a-Doodle Dandy (1949) is set in Ireland about 1940 and is rarely performed. Witchcraft is haunting the village of Nyadnanave ever since Marthraun’s daughter by his first wife, Loreleen, arrived from London. A rooster causes commotion and embodies indomitable joie de vivre and rebelliousness. The setting in the backwoods suggests […]

Socialism

Do we live in a representative democracy?

Forty-eight TDs and twenty-nine senators are landlords, with others owning shares in companies and some owning both shares and rented property. The majority of landlords are in Fine Gael, followed by Fianna Fáil. Other parties with landlords or shares include Sinn Féin, the Green Party, and the Labour Party, while […]

Uncategorised

CPI activists out in force

After the success of the CPI’s national congress, which took place on the weekend of 17 and 18 September, party activists were out in force on the following weekend. On the evening of Friday 22 September, Dublin activists took part in a protest at the Republic of Ireland v. Israel […]

Current Affairs

Three-card trick

The Government is attempting to push the state pension age to 70 by the back door. It is proposing to do this by adding 24 per cent to the pension rate if people forgo their pension and work on till they are 70. By working to 70 you give up […]

Current Affairs

Cost of living or cost of survival?

Sashi Tharoor, the Indian politician who wrote a book on British colonial plunder, An Era of Darkness (2016), once made a satirical remark: “They say the sun never sets on the British empire; that’s because even the god did not trust the British in the dark.” The Queen’s death and mourning have […]

Ireland

Capitalism: The enemy of all workers

There has been a lot surmising of over the recently announced results of the census in the North of Ireland. For the first time since partition, Catholics now outnumber Protestants there. The census found that 42 per cent of people in the North are Catholics, 37 per cent are Protestants, […]