Partisan • Patriotic • Internationalist
It’s worth recalling that one of the highlights of the James Connolly Festival of 2016 was the music performed by Bad Sea, which closed the festival with an incredible performance from the lead singer, Ciara Thompson, who lifted the roof with her magical voice. Ciara Mary-Alice Thompson, or CMAT, the moniker she has adopted, […]
The coronavirus pandemic has proved disastrous for all the nations of the world, and especially for the less-developed ones, which are now facing another serious economic threat: the theft of brains and human resources by developed countries. An article in the New York Times of 24 November 2021 (of six in a […]
Liam O’Flaherty is one of the foremost Irish fiction-writers of the twentieth century. Like none other, he commented in his work on the early years of the Irish state following its incomplete independence from 1921. Betrayal of the ideals of 1916, betrayal of the ideals of the War of Independence, is the […]
For most of the pandemic we have been lulled into acceptance; what would have been unthinkable in the past has now transformed into expected repeated public health strategy. Lockdowns, when introduced, were intended as a time-saving measure to “buy the Government time” to prepare hospitals and health infrastructure. Two years […]
The 32: An Anthology of Irish Working-Class Voices, edited by Paul McVeigh, 2021 (€12.50 / £8.75) Working-class writing is coming to the fore in Ireland. The 32 follows the publication of two anthologies of working people’s writing, The Children of the Nation (Culture Matters, 2019) and From the Plough to the Stars (Culture Matters, 2020). All three […]
Sally Rooney’s hotly anticipated latest novel, Beautiful World, Where Are You, frames a taut interpersonal drama of interlinked friendships and romance against the wider context of history, class, and labour, exploring the inherent ridiculousness of millennial existence in an increasingly fraught, complicated world. Rooney’s self-avowed Marxist credentials are apparent in this most […]
Nicaragua is a country with some 40,000 Indigenous families, who benefit from the region’s most ambitious system of decentralised Indigenous government. Three hundred Indigenous communities legally own approximately a third of Nicaragua’s national territory. Within four years of returning to power in January 2007, President Daniel Ortega’s Sandinista government had granted Nicaragua’s […]
Respect (2021) is a biographical musical drama about the life of the African-American singer and civil rights campaigner Aretha Franklin, which features Jennifer Hudson. “Respect,” Aretha’s signature song, was released in April 1967 and reached number 1 in the music charts and was later hailed as a civil rights and feminist […]
The case of Julian Assange is an important one regarding press freedom. Apart from fighting for the economic demands of workers, the Trade Union Left Forum and various trade unions engaged in a political struggle in organising a day of action in support of Assange on 23 October throughout Ireland. […]
In a personal interview printed in the Irish Times on 25 September the present leader of the DUP proclaimed that he was a “Mourne man” and went on to say that he has neighbours who carry an Irish passport while he carries a British passport, that they live on the same road […]
Five years after the Brexit referendum, its effects on the relationships between the Irish state, Britain and the European Union continue to evolve. As a direct result of Brexit, the issue of Irish reunification has become “respectable” and is no longer confined to Republicans and the Communist Party. However, others […]
At this year’s Féile an Phobail in Belfast the Irish Chapter of the Network in Defence of Humanity convened a special panel on anti-imperialism and the Americas, which is to be screened on 6 August through the festival’s web site and Youtube channels. The participants in the discussion were the […]
The Communist Party of Ireland published a statement on 13 July 2021. It can be read at the party website here.
In this article I will attempt to explain the new common agricultural policy (CAP) deal that will be implemented in 2023. First I will give a basic description of the CAP agreement: 1. There will be a linear cut of 25 per cent of direct payments. These cuts will be […]
Juvenile and other immature males seem to have a morbid fascination with fascism, or rather with the trappings of fascism: uniforms, flags, marching, and of course shouting and threatening. But they are only trappings. There’s more to fascism than that. In various European countries where “normal” capitalism is collapsing, fascism—the […]
On 11 July the world’s media gleefully reported that there were protests in Cuba. As expected, no context was given, just flippant explanations about shortages leading to “historic unrest.” It is astounding that the media managed to miss the fact that Cuba is in a situation of enduring the effects […]