On 19th August 1945 the Viet Minh, led by the Indochinese Communist Party, which would later become the Communist Party of Vietnam, took over the capital city of Vietnam, Hanoi. Within two weeks, Viet Minh forces liberated most of the villages and rural towns across north and central Vietnam. Describing […]
History
James Baldwin
James Baldwin was born one hundred years ago in Harlem, New York, 2 August 1924. Baldwin’s stepfather David, a Pentecostal preacher, was a factory worker, earning too little to provide for his family of nine children. His mother Berdis, a migrant from the South, worked in domestic service. The young […]
Republicanism and Working-Class ideology
On the 23rd of July 1803, Robert Emmet led roughly 80 men towards Dublin Castle. They were armed with pikes, pistols and blunderbusses. Emmet wouldn’t see the drunken riot that his revolution would descend into – the lack of discipline amongst the men caused him to leave Dublin and go […]
Urania
With the current culture wars focusing on mainly trans people, singling out trans women in particular (and forgetting trans men exist), one would almost forget that Irish feminists were once involved in a feminist journal that had subscribers all over the world. It was revolutionary in its writing, trying to […]
Portugal’s Unfinished Carnation Revolution of 1974
Fifty years ago on April 25th, Portugal’s 41-year-old dictatorship, the oldest in Europe, was overthrown in just 24 hours with only four dead – all shot by the fascist secret police. “The centre of Lisbon was awash with flowers and knots of jubilant groups on every street corner. Soldiers and sailors […]
No Glory In War
In 1985, Soviet Belarusian anti-war film Come and See, written and directed by Elem Klimov, was finally released. The film follows the story of a young boy from a rural village. He joins the partisans to fight off the nazi army invading the country and through his experiences, we see […]
James Connolly Commemoration at Arbour Hill
The following is a speech given by Cuban Ambassador of Ireland, Bernardo Guanche Henandez, at this year’s James Connolly Commemoration at Arbour Hill in Dublin: “Comrades all, I am very honored this afternoon to pay tribute to a historical figure of the stature of James Connolly, a prominent Marxist and […]
Understanding History
The historical narrative that we are taught has been consciously constructed by the ruling class. This historical narrative is constructed so that those of the ruling class are seen as the driving force of history and those of us who make up the working class are merely dragged along. This […]
Laos and the building of socialism
The Lao Peoples Democratic Republic came into being in 1975, after a decade of relentless US bombing against the Lao, Vietnamese, and Cambodian peoples. Laos is per capita the most bombed country in the world. 10% of its population were killed directly by US bombs and a similar number left […]
Cumann na mBan, Women and Revolutionary Politics
On 2nd April 1914, in Wynne’s Hotel in Dublin, Cumann na mBan was founded. The first provisional committee of the organisation included Agnes MacNeill, Nancy O’Rahilly, Mary Colum, Jenny Wyse Power, Louise Gavan Duffy, and Elizabeth Bloxham, with MacNeill as its president. Its objectives were to advance the cause of […]
Palestine and Ireland
The first British military governor of Palestine, Ronald Storrs, wrote that the purpose of the 1917 Balfour Decleration was to create a “loyal Jewish Ulster in a sea of potentially hostile Arabism.” The settler-colony of Israel was created by the same imperialist interests which colonised Ireland and brutalised our people. […]
Freirian Critical Dialogue – An Empowering Element of Struggle
One of the major drawbacks to radical and transformative actions by activists involved in struggle, is the hoary old chestnut of a lack of class consciousness out there in the wider population… or so we like to believe. We say it constantly: why is it that there appears to be […]
A Woman’s Place is in the Revolution
One of the most interesting anecdotes in the history of the 1916 Rising is the picture of Pearse telling the British of the surrender alone. We know he did not stand alone but Elizabeth Farrell was there with him, a vital messenger airbrushed out of history. Many women throughout history […]
African-Americans and the Italo-Ethiopian war
When Mussolini’s Italy invaded Ethiopia in 1935, most nations did little to help the Ethiopians. Britain and France, for example, were still appeasing Fascism in hopes it would head east and bring the free market back to the Soviet Union. Anthony Eden, then minister for the League of Nations affairs, […]
The slow decline of radical republicanism
The Business Post of 14th January 2024 claimed that Sinn Féin had been on “an outreach programme” with big business to reassure them that Sinn Féin in government would not “rock any boats.”17 As the entrance fee to government under capitalism is to support the system, this “revelation” comes as […]
The Invisible Crisis of Written Irish
There’s a saying on the Isle of Man, “Cha jean oo cosney ping lesh y Ghailick”, which roughly translates as “You won’t make a penny with Manx”. This perfectly illustrates how every minority language struggles to financially justify its existence. It’s hard enough to make a living as a writer […]