Last month the ugly face of capitalism came into the public glare when thirty-nine people froze to death in the back of an Irish juggernaut, having been smuggled into Britain from Viet Nam.
Later on, as November came to a close and the Christmas shopping frenzy was in full swing in the streets, on television and radio and in the newspapers, sixteen people were discovered in the back of another juggernaut, on its way to Rosslare. Mercifully, they were alive.
Current Affairs
Veterans for Peace: Let them home for Christmas!
Veterans for Peace: Let them home for Christmas!
Political statement – Communist Party of Ireland – September 2019
The National Executive Committee of the Communist Party of Ireland at its regular meeting in late September discussed and evaluated both the national and the international situation. There are growing signs of a deepening global economic slowdown. The system may be facing into a new recession, with a combination of […]
They shall not pass!
Speech by Eugene McCartan, general secretary, CPI, at the Spanish Anti-Fascist War commemoration, Slieve Foye, Co. Louth, organised by Friends of the International Brigades Once again we gather here on Slieve Foye to pay our respects and to honour the sacrifice of seven local volunteers from this region of Cos. […]
Workers in struggle
Ryanair attempts to break the union In mid-August Ryanair secured a court injunction to prevent its pilots based in Ireland from striking, even after they had followed the normal industrial procedures. The two-day strike had the support of a majority of the pilots directly employed by the company who are […]
Brexit – The string that could unravel the whole EU project
While Boris Johnson has been elected leader of the British Conservative Party, thereby becoming prime minister of Britain, the deep crisis thrown up by Brexit continues to challenge the British ruling class
Hyde and Seek – Not even children are excluded from exploitation
The investigation into the the Hyde and Seek corporate creche chain revealed the appalling conditions experienced by both the children and the staff. The priority of these private corporate bodies is to make a profit, and the needs of children and the staff are only a means to secure that profit
Hyde and Seek – The Jekyll and Hyde of capitalism
The scandalous situation exposed by the RTE programme “Prime Time Investigates” about abuses in the Hyde and Seek creche is just another in a long line of catastrophic failures by private businesses.
Ye are many—they are few Percy Bysshe Shelley and the struggle against tyranny
On 16 August 1819 tens of thousands of working men and women demonstrated at a place known as St Peter’s Field in Manchester, demanding reform and the repeal of the Corn Laws. The yeomanry and then hussars were ordered to attack, killing eighteen people and injuring more than four hundred. With the recent memory of the Battle of Waterloo, this slaughter went down in history as Peterloo. Shelley reacted with one of the earliest works of socialist literature, his famous ballad “The Mask of Anarchy.” This month we mark the 200th anniversary of those events and of Shelley’s great poem.
Féile na bhFlaitheartach, 2019
Tom O’Flaherty, who helped to organise trade unions in the United States in the 1930s and became an accomplished writer in both English and Irish, will be honoured at Féile na bhFlaitheartach, which takes place on Árainn on the weekend of 24 and 25 August. The festival, now in its seventh year, celebrates the writings and work of Liam and Tom O’Flaherty.
CPI summer school: An assessment
The recent CPI national school on 21–23 June began with the national chairperson giving a good introduction, which was followed by a brief talk on Irish history, with a different slant on the roles played by the state and its allies the church and its sycophantic followers.
Questions were posed to the audience about how we can change the tide of political discourse and about recent phenomena
Kildare anti-fascist remembered
On Saturday 22 June, Christy Moore unveiled a plaque to the socialist republican Frank Conroy, a Kildare man killed in 1936 while fighting with the International Brigades in the Spanish war against fascism.
Housing for all!
Vulture funds have become passé. The latest fad taking hold in the property market is the cuckoo fund—aptly named, as they push the individual or family buyer out of their potential nest.
The dead hand of electoralism
With the local election results just in, why is the left seen as a marginal and ignored voice among a majority of people? It seems that politics in Ireland is personality-based, and this has led to the situation where support for such politicians as Paul Murphy, Richard Boyd Barrett, Luke […]
Raise the roof!
Last month we saw the largest housing demonstration in Dublin so far, under the banner of Raise the Roof, as more than 20,000 citizens took to the streets. This campaign, launched by the ICTU, is going from strength to strength as the trade union movement takes the lead, uniting with […]
The robbery of Irish resources continues
On 28 May the Department of Communications, Climate Action and the Environment granted consent for an exploratory oil and gas well off the Kerry coast under the Petroleum and Other Minerals Development Act (1960). The department received an application last November from CNOOC Petroleum Europe (a subsidiary of the Chinese […]