A recent article in the Belfast Telegraph informed its readers that 400,000 people in the 6-counties – that is, 26.5% of the area’s population – were using antidepressants.[1] In other words, does this mean that three out of every four residents of that dysfunctional political entity are able to get through the […]
Ireland
The Defence (Amendment) Bill 2025 and What It Means for Irish Neutrality
The Defence (Amendment) Bill 2025 was published just over a year ago, and still the likes of Martin, McEntee and Byrne are getting away with telling lies about what the bill actually means for Irish neutrality. There is virtually zero public discussion by either politicians or the media about the […]
Neutrality in Name Only: Ireland, the NonAligned Movement, and the Imperial Pull
Sixty-five years ago, the Belgrade summit marked the beginning of the Non-Aligned Movement, the largest political grouping of countries in the world after the United Nations. At the height of national liberation struggles in the post-World War II world, a vision of “struggle against imperialism, colonialism, neo-colonialism, racism, and all […]
Count Me Out: Selected Writings of Filmmaker Bob Quinn – Bob Quinn, edited by Toner Quinn (Boluisce Press, 2025)
Bob Quinn was an Irish television producer who, after falling out with the RTÉ hierarchy in the late 1960s, found himself living the life of an artist in Connemara at a time when it was one of the most economically deprived regions in Europe, with a wife and young child […]
A Strategy of Power, Not Petition
Ireland is experiencing an inflationary slowdown. Forecasts point to growth falling from expectations of near 3% to now 1.6% for 2026. Higher energy prices, alongside the decline in last year’s exports surge, feed that dynamic. Inflation is likely to register at least 3.3% in 2026. There are already signs of […]
Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann i mBéal Feirste
I Mí Lúnasa, Béal Feirste will host Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann, the world’s largest traditional music festival. It is not the first time the Fleadh has been held in the north – Derry welcomed it in 2013 as part of the ‘UK City of Culture’ circus – but its arrival […]
James Connolly Commemoration Address 2026
Friends, comrades, we gather here today at the final resting place of 14 leaders of the 1916 Rising for the Communist Party of Ireland’s annual commemoration marking the Easter Rising and the execution of its leaders, among them perhaps the greatest Irish anti-imperialist, James Connolly. We are witnessing a raising […]
Crisis and the Continuity of Capitalism
I’ve been trying to get this question straight in my own head for a while now. It surfaced in the last piece on housing, and in many ways draws on arguments I’ve been working through more fully in Breaking Dependency: Ireland’s Struggle for Class Power and Sovereignty, but here I want […]
Three More Blows to Irish Neutrality
Three events during the final week of February shifted Irish foreign policy further away from neutrality and peace-keeping towards militarism and war-making. Here’s what happened: Maritime Security Strategy On 25th February, Minister for Foreign Affairs Helen McEntee launched the state’s first Maritime Security Strategy. It makes for grim reading. The […]
Frank Conroy 90th Anniversary Commemoration
The Prosperous Heritage Group will, for the first time in public, unfurl their International Brigades banner of red, yellow and purple at The Kilcullen Heritage Centre during the Frank Conroy 90th anniversary commemoration on Saturday 20th June at 3:00 PM. The main speaker, Kildare historian James Durney, will be joined […]
The Irish Left Attempts to Mimic Zohran Mamdani’s Media Game
The upcoming by-election candidates are up to all sorts of wacky adventures, and they’re hoping you’ll join them. Helen Ogbu is handing out packets of Hunky Dorys on a commuter train, while Ruth O’Dea has taken up urbex (the activity of urban exploring abandoned buildings). Daniel Ennis is getting on […]
Fuel Protests: Farmers, Small Business and Rural Communities Under Pressure
It would be entirely understandable if our readers were to take a measure of enjoyment from the latest spat embroiling Fianna Fáil and its leader, Micheál Martin. Castigated from within and outside the party for his handling of the fuel protests, questions were bound to be raised about his leadership. […]
The Housing Crisis That Isn’t: Capital, Class and the Irish System
For decades the housing question in Ireland has been framed in narrow and increasingly sterile terms. On one side stands the market, presented as the mechanism through which supply and demand will balance if given sufficient freedom. On the other stands the traditional social democratic response, calling for increased public […]
James Connolly Festival 2026
The annual festival to commemorate the execution of James Connolly on 12th May 1916 will this year feature readings of a short story and a play which have been attributed to the revolutionary socialist and writer and were only discovered in recent years. The short story entitled ‘The Agitator’s Wife’ […]
A reflection on Sinéad Morrissey’s “Among Communists”
Fresh off the printing press, Sinéad Morrissey’s memoir Among Communists, a story of growing up in a household of Communist Party members in Belfast, has drawn significant attention in the Irish media. Morrissey’s acclaim as a poet is one major factor, but the topic and the way the topic is covered […]
27th Congress of CPI – ‘Peace, Independence & Socialism’
Under the slogan “Peace, Independence & Socialism”, delegates from various branches of the Communist Party of Ireland gathered in Dublin over the weekend of 25th–26th April to discuss and debate the national and global situation. The delegates also agreed the Party’s Political Resolution, voted on changes to the Constitution, and […]
