Partisan • Patriotic • Internationalist
The UN secretary-general, António Guterres, during the peak of the covid pandemic, said that “we are all in this together.” But, on the contrary, two newspaper articles provide evidence to believe otherwise. The Irish Examiner reported that the wealth of nine Irish billionaires increased by 58 per cent since the […]
The continued eastward expansion of NATO is increasing tensions between Russia and the Western imperialist bloc. It has also caused concern to the Sunday Business Post, a newspaper that vies with the Irish Times to be the main proponent of Atlanticism in the Irish media. In line with the adage […]
Prison abolitionism is often viewed as a utopian idea, but when we examine the root causes of crime, and the victims of the legal system, it’s clear that if abolitionism is utopianism we are living in a dystopia. When a particularly heinous crime is committed it is the typical reaction […]
“More right-wing than Genghis Khan” is an expression often used to describe how far to the right someone is. Whatever about the accuracy of this statement, communists, socialist republicans and the left generally have a particular antipathy to right-wing ideology, and for a myriad of reasons. The first response is […]
Does anybody know what real purpose Seanad Éireann serves? Not only is its membership appointed by a flawed and undemocratic process but its programme is erratic and tendentious and frequently overlooks crucial issues. Little illustrates this better than its agenda last month. While giving prejudicial vent to its hostility towards […]
The impact of capitalism on women has been discussed in these pages previously, as has the increased risks that women face, both on a personal and a social level, during times of crisis. Women face increased risk of violence from intimate partners during large sports events, are disproportionately affected by […]
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. […]
On the 6th of October, at 1 p.m., the #BetterMaternityCare Campaign will be assembling outside Leinster House with the aim of ending the restrictions on birth partners’ access in maternity hospitals. While this campaign and associated groups, such as AIMS, have been raising awareness about the impact of covid-19 restrictions […]
Voters in Berlin have voted to expropriate large institutional landlords in a non-binding referendum that shows the fury Berliners have with rising rents and falling conditions. As part of the “Deutsche Wohnen & Co. enteignen” campaign, which targeted Deutsche Wohnen, a company listed on the stock exchange, and other international […]
Over the past year the powers that be have succeeded in reducing any and all political debate about the government’s response to the covid-19 pandemic to the single issue of vaccines. In doing so they have pitted workers against one another, in their time-honoured tactic, and distracted attention from the […]
On Wednesday 1 September 2021 the most restrictive abortion law in the United States, the Texas abortion law known as Senate Bill 8, came into effect. This bill amounts to a near-complete ban on abortion in the state. It prohibits abortion as soon as cardiac activity in the embryo is […]
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 […]
The dog-whistle calls of “Freedom for Cuba” that reverberated round the world on 11 July, emanating from a mix of forces in Cuba, which were carefully manipulated and crafted by the CIA and US anti-Cuban forces abroad, shed a great deal of light not only on US foreign policy hypocrisy […]
The crisis in housing is official Government policy. It is not an unintended consequence. The profit margins of the various corporate property funds that have entered the Irish housing market since 2013 require a crisis, in the supply of both public housing and affordable housing for purchase, leading to a […]
The resignation of Arlene Foster should come as little surprise. The difficulties for political unionism, and particularly for the DUP, have been mounting for some considerable time. After one hundred years of partition, unionism has finally run out of options, and unionists’ relationship with the British state has been downgraded, […]
“I recommend people not to employ Roman Catholics, who are 99 per cent disloyal.”—Basil Brooke, minister of agriculture, later prime minister of Northern Ireland May this year is the centenary of the establishment of the Stormont regime and the institutionalising of violent division, mass repression, mainly against the Catholic minority, […]