Partisan • Patriotic • Internationalist
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 […]
We have two health services in Ireland, and both are on the verge of collapse. Since Covid exposed their existing inadequacies, very little capacity has been added to either service in preparation for the next wave. We should have been building and training staff for several new hospitals. In fact […]
In a personal interview printed in the Irish Times on 25 September the present leader of the DUP proclaimed that he was a “Mourne man” and went on to say that he has neighbours who carry an Irish passport while he carries a British passport, that they live on the same road […]
One of the most common attacks against us by anti-communists, in Ireland and elsewhere, is that communist parties were little more than “pawns of Moscow.” This line of attack was used against the CPI, both by the right and by some on the so-called left, in an effort to use establishment anti-Sovietism as well as to paint the party as…
The production process of computer games hides the built-in exploitation of both workers and customers Games workers in Ireland and all over the world have begun unionising. First of all they established their own Game Workers Unite, a loose movement of workers internationally; this has since developed in a number […]
The spectre of a democratic and progressive country What on earth was that event last month in St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Armagh, all about? We were told that it wasn’t a celebration of partition, nor a commemoration of the hundredth anniversary of the foundation of the Six-County political entity. Rather, it […]
Rally for Irish Unity, Newtown Butler, Co. Fermanagh, 24 October 2021 A chairde Gael, Bailíonn muid anseo ar bhruach na hainnise a dtugtar an teorainn air. An chríochdheighilt sheicteach ghránna is cúis le hár is uafás in Éirinn le céad bliain anuas. Tá muid bailithe anseo in Achadh na Gé […]
If you were to do an online search for “richest countries” you would quickly find lists where Ireland features prominently, by some estimates sometimes as high as the third-richest in the entire world. At the same time you would understand anecdotally, or perhaps personally, the difficulty with which people manage […]
On the 6th of October, at 1 p.m., the #BetterMaternityCare Campaign will be assembling outside Leinster House with the aim of ending the restrictions on birth partners’ access in maternity hospitals. While this campaign and associated groups, such as AIMS, have been raising awareness about the impact of covid-19 restrictions […]
Professor Geraldine McCarthy, chairperson of the board of the South and South-West Hospital Group, has become the third senior health figure to resign, following the departure of two other senior officials from the government’s Sláintecare reform scheme. The three lay the blame on the government’s continuing failure to implement reforms […]
Katherine Zappone’s rejection, respectful or otherwise, of an invitation to appear before an Oireachtas committee investigating her irregular appointment was symptomatic of a wider phenomenon. It was an example of a sense of entitlement shared by all those in the well-to-do strata of this, our class-bound, class-divided society. This is […]
Government housing policy is the cause of the housing crisis. Homelessness, waiting-lists and extortionate private rent levels are the symptoms. Universally accessible public housing is the cure, the solution, to permanently end the housing crisis. Government housing policy works very well for those it is designed to benefit: the speculators, […]