The Avante festival is the annual festival of the Portuguese Communist Party and is held every year in the first weekend of September. It is named for the party’s newspaper, Avante! (Forward!). The festival has been running for forty-one years, mostly consecutive, except for 1987, when as a result of […]
Culture
A legacy of struggle for humanity
Käthe Kollwitz, whose work is on exhibition for the first time in the National Gallery of Ireland, was one of Germany’s greatest artists and sculptors. She stands tall among anti-war artists and champions of the dispossessed of our time.Kollwitz broke completely with bourgeois aesthetics and made the subjugated, humiliated working […]
Standing in front of a mural of Oscar Romero
Táim im’ sheasamh os comhair múrphictiúr I’m standing in front of a mural d’Oscar Romero Of Oscar Romero Deirtear go bhfuil deich milliún duine neamhurchóideach They say America killed ten million innocents Maraithe ag na Meiriceánaigh ó dheireadh an Dara Cogadh Domhanda Since the end of World War II Caithfidh […]
Poetry
The imperialist world order Eoghan O’Neill No sound, sight nor smell do we encounter Away from the lands where they bring man’s thunder Propaganda, intervention, mercenary spies Where indiscriminate carnage falls from above Humanity despairs as the West spreads lies Wrapped in white helmets and perfect white doves All to […]
United Wolfe Tone Commemoration Bodenstown, 20 August 2017
As part of its continuing efforts to build unity among left and progressive forces, between socialists and republicans, the Peadar O’Donnell Socialist Republican Forum called for a united commemoration to honour Theobald Wolfe Tone (1763–1798), the founder of Irish republicanism. Tone developed his political strategy in the belief that Irish […]
A fitting account of a great communist
The play Jimmy’s Hall, running at the Abbey Theatre, is said to be adapted from Paul Laverty’s film script of the same name, directed by Ken Loach. When the film was first mooted it sent a scurry of excitement around certain sections of the left, and in particular the CPI, […]
Bratacha éagsúla
Attoor Ravivarma (or Attur Ravi Varma) writes in Malayalam, the language of Kerala, spoken by about 20 million people. Among Indian states, Kerala had the first democratically elected communist government, and over the years Keralans vote either the Congress Party or the Communist Party into office. Ravivarma’s poem was translated […]
The existential crisis of the GAA
Now that we’ve literally reached the business end of the annual GAA season, it is perhaps timely to reflect on the trajectory that Ireland’s pre-eminent sporting, cultural and community organisation appears to have ingloriously embarked upon in recent decades. Just last month, sporting twitterati and print journos went apoplectic in […]