A recent feature in the Financial Times might cause some surprise among Ireland’s eight thousand homeless, or the many others struggling with the spiralling cost of renting even modest accommodation. The article reported that the Republic is now enjoying one of the most remarkable economic revivals the European Union has […]
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United Wolfe Tone Commemoration Bodenstown, 20 August 2017
As part of its continuing efforts to build unity among left and progressive forces, between socialists and republicans, the Peadar O’Donnell Socialist Republican Forum called for a united commemoration to honour Theobald Wolfe Tone (1763–1798), the founder of Irish republicanism. Tone developed his political strategy in the belief that Irish […]
Google censors the internet
Amid all the hysteria about “fake news,” as reported by the corporate and state media (i.e. the actual purveyors of fake news for the last century or more), a significant piece of news about Google, the giant near-monopoly internet corporation, slipped by unreported or, if reported, unexamined. In September 2016 […]
Human rights advocate or anti-democratic agent?
Liu Xiaobo, a winner of the Nobel Prize for Peace for his opposition to the Chinese state, died on 17 July 2017. Since his death, Western media have been publishing the usual laudatory obituaries given to those “human rights activists” who, coincidentally, have views aligning with imperialist foreign policy. The […]
A fitting account of a great communist
The play Jimmy’s Hall, running at the Abbey Theatre, is said to be adapted from Paul Laverty’s film script of the same name, directed by Ken Loach. When the film was first mooted it sent a scurry of excitement around certain sections of the left, and in particular the CPI, […]
Bratacha éagsúla
Attoor Ravivarma (or Attur Ravi Varma) writes in Malayalam, the language of Kerala, spoken by about 20 million people. Among Indian states, Kerala had the first democratically elected communist government, and over the years Keralans vote either the Congress Party or the Communist Party into office. Ravivarma’s poem was translated […]
Thoughts on ideology
The ideas that reflect the objective interests of a class are its ideology. The ruling class in any society imprints its ideology on “mainstream” thinking, as expressed in all the official opinions of the state—in politics, economics, philosophy, art, religion, and so on. As it expresses the interests of the […]
The existential crisis of the GAA
Now that we’ve literally reached the business end of the annual GAA season, it is perhaps timely to reflect on the trajectory that Ireland’s pre-eminent sporting, cultural and community organisation appears to have ingloriously embarked upon in recent decades. Just last month, sporting twitterati and print journos went apoplectic in […]
Public housing is the only solution
The saying “After all is said and done there is usually more said than done” would nicely sit with the Dublin government at this time, especially in their response to the housing crisis. If we are to believe the media, Simon Coveney more or less begged the previous taoiseach, Enda […]
Brexit: bordering on the ridiculous
The continuing drip feed from the Brexit negotiations on the future of the border between the two parts of our country, and the inability to do anything about it, illustrate the total lack of sovereignty we have as members of the imperial club. We may be members, yet we are […]
Ireland in debt
Ireland in 2017 is in a state of confusion. On the one hand the official line tells us that we are out of the recession, that government revenue and expenditure are increasing annually. The level of general government deficit is declining, and government debt in 2016 was 75 per cent […]
Apollo House: A housing crisis by design
Frustrated at the failure of governments to tackle the problem of homelessness, a number of organisations under the umbrella of Home Sweet Home, including the Irish Housing Network, trade unions, and artists and musicians, have taken on the Government in an organised act of civil disobedience. There are now 6,847 […]
Public housing—not social housing
As a solution to the housing, rent and homelessness crisis we need a massive public housing plan, with both new construction and the conversion of NAMA property into public housing. The advantages of public housing to working people are many. It would not just resolve the present crisis—a national emergency […]
Monopoly capital, the budget, and housing in Dublin
A small number of builders and developers own the land zoned for housing around Dublin. They are the suppliers of housing, and they have control over supply. As monopolists or semi-monopolists they have a vested interest in the high and rising prices for new houses. If prices rise, their profits […]