History

History

Samantha Power and the Irish cousins

Samantha Power was born in Ireland but was taken to America at a young age by her parents, a doctor and a dentist. She attended Yale University and subsequently became a war journalist. Later she was an adviser to Barack Obama, who appointed her US ambassador to the United Nations […]

Culture History

Another world is possible

Twenty years ago, on 8 October 1998, the communist writer José Saramago became the first Portuguese author to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature. The first fifty years of Saramago’s life were defined by the fascist dictatorship that ruled Portugal from 1926 to 1974 and his active resistance against it. […]

Culture History

Victor Jara sings on

Forty-five years ago, on 11 September 1973, the Chilean military, under the command of General Augusto Pinochet and backed by the United States, overthrew the democratically elected socialist government of Salvador Allende. Allende, who had won the election in September 1970, was faced even before taking office with the enmity […]

History

The anti-fascism of Georgi Dimitrov

Georgi Dimitrov led the Communist International from 1934 to 1943. During that time, he contributed to the Communist understanding of fascism, more so than any other Marxist theorist. Dimitrov outlined the origins and purpose of fascism as well as the strategy the Communist movement had to adopt in order to […]

History

Ireland’s Basque refugees

A very interesting talk on Ireland’s Basque refugees during the Spanish Civil War was given by the political activist Stewart Reddin at the Ubh café in Droichead Nua (Newbridge), Co. Kildare, on Saturday 16 June, as part of June Fest. The café was packed for the talk, with part of […]

Culture History

“The name is communism”

Cover of the first edition, written in German, published in London in 1848. It reads: “Manifesto of the Communist Party | Published February 1848 | Proletarians of all Lands, Unite! | London | Printed in the offices of the Workers’ Educational Association | By J. E. Burghard | 46, Liverpool […]

History Political Economy

Something to celebrate: The first Dáil Éireann and the Democratic Programme

Next January the Peadar O’Donnell Socialist Republican Forum will mark the centenary of the first Dáil Éireann and the publication of one of modern Ireland’s landmark documents, the Democratic Programme. The forum will celebrate the occasion with a conference in Liberty Hall, Dublin. While it is important that seminal events […]

Culture History

From Burns to Liebknecht

Every so often, history presents us with an amazing affirmation of our humanity, a sense of continuity, the passing on of the torch. This applies supremely to Robert Burns’s song “For A’ That.” Burns was highly regarded in the USSR Robert Burns, born on 25 January 1759, lived in an […]

History Ireland

Small ripples make big waves

The search for Frank Conroy’s birthplace and family On 13 December 1936 Frank Conroy, a member of the Republican Congress and the Communist Party of Ireland, sailed on the Holyhead ferry, alongside Frank Ryan, determined to defend the Spanish Republic against the fascist rebellion. This Spanish Civil War hero died […]

Culture History

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 […]