Partisan • Patriotic • Internationalist
“Let me tell you a story, I’ll be quick as I can Terrible news from the Holy Land Pictures of children etched in my mind Buried in the rubble, on the firing line.” — Christy Moore, “Palestine” Christy Moore played a sold-out concert at the Keadeen Hotel in Droichead Nua […]
Does the concept of polycrisis capture the current conjuncture? The world is on fire. Every day we wake up to news of brutal wars, reckless environmental destruction, oligarchy brazenly flaunting its wealth and power amidst escalating economic inequality, election of politicians who are blatantly corrupt and hostile to the class […]
On 22 September, the Chinese Embassy in Ireland hosted a reception marking the 77th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China. The Communist Party of Ireland was honoured to accept the invitation of His Excellency Mr. Zhao Xiyuan, Ambassador of the People’s Republic of China to Ireland, […]
This is the third in a five-part series on the politics of power. Earlier articles asked what makes rights real and why some carry greater weight. This article examines the State and institutions through which those power relations are reproduced. One of the clearest moments when political power appears to […]
January 3, 2026, marked a turning point in Venezuela’s contemporary political history. The U.S. military intervention, the bombings of national territory, and the kidnapping of Nicolás Maduro and Cilia Flores constituted an open violation of sovereignty and gave way to a new balance of power, in which the United States […]
Dear readers, I watched the EU State of the Union address so you don’t have to. Similar to the wearing of sashes by MEPs in parliament sessions, the annual address by the EU president is one of those unusual rituals which no EU citizen seems to know or care is […]
During his recent visit to Ireland, Donald Trump behaved much as expected. Unwilling to share the limelight, he stole attention from Shane Lowry, winner of the Irish Open, by announcing a lifting of tariffs on Irish whiskey exports to the USA. This populist gesture in Doonbeg was, however, superseded by […]
In the spring of 1920, as the young Soviet Republic struggled for survival amid internal and external siege, Lenin penned “Left-Wing” Communism: An Infantile Disorder. The pamphlet took aim precisely at those West European communists who considered themselves “more Left” than the Bolsheviks. Lenin pointed out that this “Left-wing” infantilism “regards […]
The Irish political and military establishments, state bureaucracy, mass media and numerous “think tanks” continue in their carefully crafted strategy to end the neutrality of this state and turn our country into an unsinkable platform for NATO. They want this state to be the new poster boy for NATO. The […]
This is the second in a five-part series on the politics of power. The first asked what makes rights and freedoms real. This article examines what happens when they come into conflict. Consider a home. To the person living in it, whether tenant or owner-occupier, it is somewhere to live […]
On 29 August 2026, Icelanders rejected EU accession by 52.8% to 47.2%, on an extraordinary 82.5% turnout. The verdict was a decisive rejection of Brussels’ neoliberal discipline and the erosion of national sovereignty—a rejection that carries profound lessons for Ireland. Iceland’s EU path has been ambivalent. It applied in 2009 […]
In May of this year, the Minister for Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation, Jack Chambers, TD, published details of an enhanced expenditure control and escalation process to curb what was described as out-of-control spending. It was stated by the Minister that spending was already over the 6% […]
In many bourgeois liberal democracies, analysts have become anxious about the “crisis of democracy” – i.e. the loss of support for the traditional parties. Some commentators look outside the system and blame interference by Russian and Chinese state agencies. More realistic defenders of bourgeois democracy locate the crisis within the […]
Football is the global language of ordinary people. It is played on any suitable surface (and many unsuitable surfaces) by working people in every corner of the world. But the World Cup stands above this mass, democratic experience, a political and economic spectacle, a plaything of FIFA, multinational corporations, broadcasters […]
Growing up during the cold war, China was a distant, mysterious, menacing spectre. During my new left years, during the cultural revolution, China became a beacon of possibility, when masses seemed to be examining the foundations of knowledge and pushing at the boundaries of the social order. Then it seemed […]
Recent reports on the Irish economy show that Modified Domestic Demand, a better estimate of economic activity than Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in Ireland because it strips out some of the distortions caused by foreign multinational activity, rose by 0.3% between Q4 2025 and Q1 2026, spurred by personal spending […]