Partisan • Patriotic • Internationalist
The women of Iran have risen up, with cries of “Down with the dictator!” The catalyst has been the murder of Mahsa (Zhina) Amini, a 22-year-old woman murdered at the hands of the Gasht-e Ershād (Guidance Patrol), otherwise known as the morality police. She was arrested on 13 September for […]
What on earth was going on here last month? To all appearances a supposedly sovereign independent republic immersed itself in sympathy and affection for the British monarchy. Within hours of the announcement of Elizabeth’s death, RTE had a crew broadcasting solemnly from London. The Government fell over backwards in its […]
In whose interests was the Nord Stream gas pipeline sabotaged? In the last week of September there were a number of leaks in Nord Stream 1 and 2, culminating on 29 September in a major rupture. The construction of the Nord Stream pipeline cost billions, to bring natural gas from […]
The coalition government of Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Green Party has announced its 2023 budget. This is taking place in a period of growing inflation, rising energy costs, and falling consumer confidence and spending. The increase in social welfare payments comes nowhere near meeting the rate of inflation. […]
The recent exhaustive celebrations of Michael Collins’s life were selective and tendentious. There was very little mention of his campaign against Dublin Castle’s G men and British intelligence but heavy emphasis on his role in negotiating the Treaty and founding the Free State. In reality, the centenary events were an […]
There is always profit to be made in war; and the war in Ukraine is no different. The warmongering weapons manufacturers, such as Lockheed Martin, Rheinmetall, Raytheon, and BAE Systems, will not spare any casualties if there is a profit to be made. The blood of war fuels the profits […]
Lithium is the lightest known metal, for which the heaviest competition for possession may occur in the future. In the capitalist mode of production, human wants and necessities are converted into commodities: that is, use values are made to go through an exchange value system, through markets, with profit as […]
A call to action for communist and progressive trade unionists The cost-of-living crisis—or, as the CPI more accurately describes it, the cost of greed—is now hitting working people hard throughout the country. It is time for clear demands from the trade union movement, and the leadership to win. But rest […]
The British and Irish media have been singing the praises of Field-Marshal (retired) Henry Wilson, assassinated outside his home in London on 22 June 1922 by two members of the IRA, seemingly on the orders of the IRB (i.e. Michael Collins). Wilson was a former chief of staff of British […]
For months the media have been full of stories about the cost-of-living crisis, the climate crisis, the housing crisis, and the crisis in the health service. The Government has laid the blame on the world economy, or on supply-line issues, either as a result of the pandemic or of the […]
As many people know, Brazil will face its first round of federal elections on 2 October, after being ruled by the far right for four years. The event is characterised by a huge polarisation that is widely discussed by people and poorly discussed by the candidates (at least those who […]
Farm vehicles blockading motorways, burning haystacks on hard shoulders, and heaps of manure at the house of parliament—these images from the farmers’ protests in the Netherlands have been broadcast around the world. The recent reports of nitrogen excesses, and the magnitude by which it needs to be reduced, have struck […]
The recent visit of the speaker of the US House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, to Taiwan has sharply increased the prospect of war in the region. The Chinese government and people strongly believe Taiwan to be their territory; and the no. 3 official in the US government visiting Taiwan is […]
The housing crisis will not be solved by treating the symptoms. The root cause—the Government’s political strategy of transferring the provision of homes to the private sector—is the problem that has to be tackled if we are to solve this crisis permanently. This requires a sustained national building campaign by […]
The singer-songwriter Sive got a surprise at the 2018 James Connolly Festival when Christy Moore took to the stage at the concert Sive was headlining to give an impromptu performance of four songs, including “Viva la Quince Brigada.” Sive played an amazing acoustic set at “Live at the Local” in […]
Margaret Ward’s ground-breaking book on revolutionary women in Ireland, Unmanageable Revolutionaries: Women and Irish Nationalism, 1880–1980 (1983), was republished in an updated, revised and richly illustrated new edition by Arlen House in late 2021. It is a superb introduction to some of the great women in Irish history since Anna […]