Partisan • Patriotic • Internationalist
A bilingual 31-syllable tanka (5-7-5-7-7 syllables) in Irish and English, in response to a work of street art. Street Poster, Liverpool, by Guy Denning cad atá ar siúlis deacair é a thuiscintcuir in iúl dom écén cuspóir atá againnní thuigim a thuilleadh é what are we doing it is hard […]
The recent report by the High-Level Group on Collective Bargaining is an opportunity for the trade union movement, and for workers seeking to collectively organise and unionise. It will absolutely not solve the declining density and power of the movement, but if made use of it may present an additional […]
A major victory for the civil rights struggle in Northern Ireland was the removal of public housing from sectarian control through the creation of the Northern Ireland Housing Executive. The NIHE built up a reputation for building some of the best public housing in western Europe, and developing progressive engagement […]
The Communist Party of Ireland, along with other activists from Ireland, recently received an invitation from MEPs Clare Daly and Mick Wallace to attend the EU Parliament in Brussels to participate in two events. First, a film showing of Ithaka, a documentary highlighting the ongoing persecution of journalist Julian Assange and the […]
There were Lord of the Rings references aplenty earlier this month as participants of all shapes and persuasions—representing organisations often refusing to openly collaborate—were ferried to the postcard setting of Inis Oírr. In between ancient ruins and tourist traps, the media platform Left Bloc, with support from Trademark (Belfast) and others, held […]
There is nothing more foreign to Ireland than capitalism. While the primitive Irish communist system was not perfect, the feudal and capitalist systems of production were brought to this country by an English bayonet. The Irish left has struggled to understand this contradiction within Irish capitalism, instead seeing the class […]
Sean O’Casey’s dark comedy Cock-a-Doodle Dandy (1949) is set in Ireland about 1940 and is rarely performed. Witchcraft is haunting the village of Nyadnanave ever since Marthraun’s daughter by his first wife, Loreleen, arrived from London. A rooster causes commotion and embodies indomitable joie de vivre and rebelliousness. The setting in the backwoods suggests […]
Cubans residing in Ireland have contacted the Consular Office of the Cuban Embassy to express their solidarity in the face of the serious damage suffered in the western region of Cuba as a result of the passage of the intense hurricane “Ian.” Likewise, they have expressed their willingness to help […]
Forty-eight TDs and twenty-nine senators are landlords, with others owning shares in companies and some owning both shares and rented property. The majority of landlords are in Fine Gael, followed by Fianna Fáil. Other parties with landlords or shares include Sinn Féin, the Green Party, and the Labour Party, while […]
The word “democracy” (from the Greek dēmos, meaning people, and kratos, meaning power) is certainly the most used and abused word in the world of politics—particularly bourgeois politics. It is used to mean whatever capitalist power wants it to mean. It can mean peace; it can mean war, death, and destruction; it can mean […]
The fascist Georgia Meloni is a-speaking a lot of baloney she a-shoots from the hip when she a-opens her lip me a-thinks that Meloni’s a phoney An ceannaire nua Meloni ag scaothaireacht a bhíonn sí i gcónaí ach tá Dia lena taobh (cén fáth? canathaobh?) Is a cara mór, Silvio […]
Reproductive rights are under attack around the world, and while small gains have been made in Ireland since the repeal of the 8th Amendment, the Government has continued to fail to deliver free, safe, legal, local and accessible abortion services for all who need them. As it stands, abortion in […]
While the world looks on at the proxy war between Russia and the United States taking place in Ukraine, in which the Russian and Ukrainian people suffer, the continuing ethnic cleansing takes place in occupied Palestine. The Ukrainian flag is ubiquitous in the West; what are the colours of the […]
Under the slogan “National and Class Unity,” the Communist Party of Ireland held its 26th National Congress over the weekend of 17 and 18 September in Dublin. The congress brought together communists from around Ireland to discuss and vote upon the political resolution and a new constitution. It was the […]
Sashi Tharoor, the Indian politician who wrote a book on British colonial plunder, An Era of Darkness (2016), once made a satirical remark: “They say the sun never sets on the British empire; that’s because even the god did not trust the British in the dark.” The Queen’s death and mourning have […]
There has been a lot surmising of over the recently announced results of the census in the North of Ireland. For the first time since partition, Catholics now outnumber Protestants there. The census found that 42 per cent of people in the North are Catholics, 37 per cent are Protestants, […]