The announcement of his retirement by Sinn Féin’s long-serving president, Gerry Adams, was deemed by the media to be the most noteworthy happening at the party’s recent ard-fheis. After thirty-four often turbulent years at the helm of a movement ridiculed and lauded in almost equal parts, it could hardly have […]
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A future worth fighting for
Earlier this month the Trade Union Left Forum issued its “Workers’ Charter: A Future Worth Fighting for.” The charter calls for a range of legislative reforms to improve both workers’ and union rights in the south and north of Ireland. Each progressive change itself is important for workers, but, if […]
The road to Damascus
In 2007 General Wesley Clarke revealed the Pentagon’s post-9/11 plan to overthrow “seven countries in five years: Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran.” In the 7 October edition of the Tory Spectator, J. R. Bradley outlined the now failed plot against Syria: “our cynical […]
Varadkar’s ill-considered message
For a politician who spends so much taxpayers’ money on a “Strategic Communications Unit,” Leo Varadkar managed to deliver an extraordinarily ill-considered and dangerous message on his trip to the North last month. In an interview with the BBC he said: “I wouldn’t like us to get to the point […]
Sign the Workers’ Charter
I pledge to support, promote and encourage the following principles within my work-place, my union, the trade union movement, and society more generally. I am a trade union activist in favour of— (1) A Trade Union Bill, in the Republic of Ireland and in Northern Ireland, to provide for union […]
Reduced VAT rate is a subsidy for hotels
Sometimes things that don’t appear in the budget are more important than those that do. One of these was the retention of the VAT rate of 9 per cent for hotels and catering. This policy, introduced in 2011 to help the catering and hotel industries, costs about €500 million a […]
The battle for Venezuela goes on
Venezuela held regional elections on 15 October, electing governors in the twenty-three states. What was reported in the corporate media was that the opposition denounced the results as fraudulent, as did the governments of the United States, France, and Canada. The opposition has cried “fraud” every time it has lost […]
Unity is strength
Artificial barriers of religion and politics have been used down through the years to divide our people. In the North in 1932 there was a time when there was total unity of the working class. This was during the outdoor relief (social assistance) strike, when Catholic and Protestant workers united […]
Political statement
National Executive Committee, Communist Party of Ireland 21 October 2017 At the National Executive Committee meeting of the Communist Party of Ireland there was a discussion of the growing housing crisis in the north and south of the country. In particular, the Irish government has failed to address in any […]
Ten days that shaped the twentieth century
This November, tens of millions of working people around the world will celebrate the centenary of the Russian Revolution, which took place on 7 November 1917 (or 25 October according to the Julian calendar, then used in Russia). To understand how the revolution happened we need to place it in […]
The art of revolution
With the Russian Revolution of 1917 the dispossessed took control over their destiny, for the first time in history. How did artists respond to this liberation? Artists from all artistic movements worked with the Soviet power. The revolution offered the state and the arts a real opportunity to merge their […]
Where would we be without political satire?
Gabriel Rosenstock introduces and translates another poem from the Indian subcontinent Where would we be without political satire? Writing in Rajasthani, which has a literature stretching back 1,500 years or more, the author Rangrelo Bithu flourished in the sixteenth century. He enjoyed making fun of his king, Rawal Har of […]
A new campaign for public housing
The Campaign for Public Housing was launched in Dublin at the end of October. The CPI is one of a number of socialist organisations, tenants’ associations, community activists and other groups that make up the broad alliance within the campaign. The campaign was launched in Dublin, but it is planned […]
Inventing the future
Inventing the Future: Postcapitalism and a World Without Work by Nick Srnicek and Alex Williams offers a penetrating and timely critique of the failures of the Western left and puts forward an intriguing hypothesis for creating a society where the drudgery of work has been virtually abolished. The basic premise […]
The next crisis—when, not if
We cannot ignore the recent election result in Germany. What happens in the most powerful and influential state in Europe west of Russia must interest us all, as inevitably it will have an impact in Ireland and elsewhere. Moreover, while the electoral success of the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AFD) […]
Portuguese communist festival: From strength to strength
The Avante festival is the annual festival of the Portuguese Communist Party and is held every year in the first weekend of September. It is named for the party’s newspaper, Avante! (Forward!). The festival has been running for forty-one years, mostly consecutive, except for 1987, when as a result of […]