Partisan • Patriotic • Internationalist
“Oh, words are lightly spoken, said Pearse to Connolly.” This is a line from W. B. Yeats’s poem “The Rose Tree.” It is not, though, something always practised by the establishment in our 26-county republic. Their words are carefully chosen to deliver a message. Moreover, what they say and how […]
Much has been written and will be written about the establishment of Dáil Éireann in January 1919 and its adoption of the Democratic Programme. That programme offered the people a vision of a better and more just Ireland, presented as a natural progression from the Proclamation of the Irish Republic […]
“Oxford Union votes down motion on reunification of Ireland” read a recent headline in the Belfast Telegraph. It was the type of news story guaranteed to warm the hearts of delegates gathering in Belfast a few days later for the DUP’s annual conference. Coupled with the attendance at the event […]
Theresa May once told a Tory party conference that people viewed Conservatives as “the nasty party.” She claimed this was an unfortunate misunderstanding, to be rectified by improving the party’s public-relations campaign. While few readers of Socialist Voice would fall for that type of self-serving nonsense, too many others accept […]
Sinn Féin is the big loser from the presidential election. Given a golden opportunity to present itself as the principal alternative to a triumvirate of Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil, and the Labour Party, it offered the Republic’s electorate a package so bland that it blended in with the wallpaper. Surely […]
Summary of the talk given by the general secretary of the CPI, Eugene McCartan, at the Desmond Greaves Summer School in September 2018
Mícheál Martin’s Fianna Fáil is in a bind. The man once described by the Irish Times columnist Miriam Lord as the Grand Old Duke of Cork is still impaled on the horns of a dilemma. He has led his party into a perilous position, leaving it stranded in political no-man’s […]
The true class nature of the Irish state was exposed recently at the eviction of the Take Back the City group from a house in North Frederick Street, Dublin, when employees of a private security firm, masked and armed with sledgehammers and cutting equipment, smashed into the occupied premises while […]
The Communist Party of Ireland condemns the attempt at further privatisation by putting out to public tender another 10 per cent of Bus Éireann routes. We are not fooled by the standard neo-liberal dual strategy of starving and running down their target, in this case Bus Éireann, through lack of […]
On a wet night in February 1912, Winston Churchill, first lord of the admiralty, addressed a cheering crowd of more than seven thousand nationalists gathered in the old Celtic Park football ground in Belfast. He was there to promote the third Government of Ireland Bill (often called the Home Rule […]
With demographic change, Brexit, and a deadlocked Northern Ireland Assembly, the call for a border poll has been raised more and more often. Under the terms of the Belfast Agreement, a border poll is the only way partition can be ended. It can be allowed to happen only if the […]
What for long appeared unimaginable has seemingly now become inevitable. The Northern state, created with a built-in unionist majority and uncompromising regime, once seemed as permanent a fixture as its grandiose parliament building at Stormont. Not any longer, though. Britain’s Tory prime minister has voiced her doubts about its future […]
Once again problems relating to women’s health and the treatment of women within the health system were exposed with the the discovery that 209 women are affected by the Cervical Check scandal that emerged in the last few weeks. Once again people’s lives, and in particular those of women, have […]
Capitalism exploits the working class, and in particular women. This is done through the devaluation of women’s labour in the home—that is, the necessary work of reproducing and maintaining workers for the capitalist machine—and the devaluation of work done by women outside the home: the pay gap.* Neither of these […]
The sleek intercity train connecting Amsterdam to Rotterdam zips between the two cities in a mere forty minutes and, with a fare of only €15.40 (£13.50), puts our fares to shame. The Dutch railways are still nationally owned, operated by Nederlandse Spoorwegen, and the route between the two cities claims […]
Some years ago an American friend had a nasty accident while visiting Belfast. Looking to his left, he stepped into the roadway, was struck by a car, and suffered a broken leg. This man was a responsible adult, but his lived experience in New York had caused him to look […]