Partisan • Patriotic • Internationalist
Imagine your child who you love so much suffering mental distress. You would literally do anything for them. Their anxiety reaches a point where they become so frustrated it turns to anger and rage. Violence erupts. You act in self-defence, and the family home is up-ended, debris everywhere. The Gardaí […]
There it goes, down again. Holed below the waterline, the leaking vessel Stormont is floundering once more. Yet, in spite of its official role as an integral part of overall United Kingdom governance, the British establishment cares little about the political apparatus in Belfast. Underlining this reality was the spectacle […]
At the recent biennial delegate conference of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions a motion from Dublin Council of Trade Unions was passed to seek alternative legislation to restore all rights lost as a result of the Industrial Relations Act (1990). The 1990 act was a direct result of the […]
Hostile architecture is familiar to most people as dramatic instances of anti-homelessness spikes, sprinkler systems, or directional speakers. These devices are placed outside shops and businesses to discourage people who sleep in the street from choosing this particular nook to shelter in, or to prevent teenagers from gathering. Egregious examples […]
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 […]
The murder of Aisling Murphy on 12 January on a walking trail known as Fiona’s Way (in memory of the missing woman Fiona Pender) was the most recent case of femicide in Ireland. Women can’t feel safe while walking in the dark, have to watch their drinks in bars, and […]
The title of Robert Ballagh’s painting The Thirtieth of January makes clear its connection to Goya’s The Third of May. But of course the visual language is also compelling. While in Goya’s picture the outline of Madrid sets the location of the executions in 1808, in Ballagh’s it is the […]
The recent RTE series “Crimes and Confessions” raises a number of important issues. The programmes dealt with three miscarriages of justice, suggesting that the wider context for these events lay in the fall-out from the Northern conflict then taking place. This self-serving explanation may please some but is actually dangerously […]
We are told that public education is free. However, you don’t need to look very far into how the public education system works to see that this simply isn’t true. The public school system, which is supposed to be financed by the tax that working people pay, is filled with […]
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 […]
Irish republicanism has always had a weak spot when it comes to history. While we can name every battle, every martyr and graveyard in this country’s perennial struggle for sovereignty and independence, we fail to look at the bigger picture and learn the lessons of that history. Much will be […]
For most of the pandemic we have been lulled into acceptance; what would have been unthinkable in the past has now transformed into expected repeated public health strategy. Lockdowns, when introduced, were intended as a time-saving measure to “buy the Government time” to prepare hospitals and health infrastructure. Two years […]
Weakening of the structure of capitalism in Ireland Two recent articles in Socialist Voice – “On the need for a focal point,” parts 1 and 2 – attempted to deal with the importance of directed, planned and conscious interventions in the class struggle. The articles put forward a framework for […]
Governments are not formed on the basis of opinion polls. Nevertheless it would be unwise to discard their findings, especially when a consistent trend is emerging. With this in mind, it is difficult to deny that Sinn Féin is gaining ground and establishing a strong, some might argue unassailable, position. […]
As increased “lockdown” measures by the Government are on the horizon again, it appears that the extent of the bourgeois state’s ingenuity as regards battling the novel-coronavirus pandemic remains to repeat the same failed tactic over and over again: more vaccines and restrictions, no capital investment, no infrastructure, no sickness […]