Partisan • Patriotic • Internationalist
In the first week of January 2023, Mount Jerome crematorium was packed to capacity as activists from around Ireland gathered to pay their respects on the passing of Robert Navan. Our country and progressive causes have lost a principled and committed anti-imperialist activist in Robert. Robert began his political engagement […]
“The CPI . . . has connected the economic struggles of the workers with the national struggle, drawing militant trade unionists into the national struggle and revolutionary national fighters into the economic struggles.”—An Appeal to IRA Volunteers, published in the Irish Communist, 1934 The Communist Party of Ireland managed to […]
A group of working men assembled in a bar in London but for a different reason: they were in a hurry to put together a programme for their organisation, the Communist League, which consisted mostly of German migrant workers. They delegated Marx and Engels to carry out the task. The […]
Travellers, or Mincéirí, are a minority ethnic group indigenous to Ireland who have a shared language and culture. The biggest blight on “modern” Ireland, without question, is the treatment of the Travelling community. It is a continuing shame on the state and on society more generally. Traditional Traveller occupations, such […]
Access for All Ireland is an advocacy group that highlights the difficulties faced by anyone in Ireland with mobility issues. I sat with Brendan Mulvaney, co-founder of the group, to discuss what the organisation’s goals are, how Ireland ranks internationally, and how politics intersects with the issue of accessibility. A: […]
As we begin a new year we remain static in the progress of society, entrapped in the system of capitalism. 2022 ended with many people from the Cost of Living Coalition taking part in a protest outside the Dáil on the 17th of December. The protest was against Leo Varadkar […]
How serious is the far-right threat in Ireland today? The question is being widely discussed because of a series of high-profile protests. At first these were outside asylum-seekers’ accommodation, and more recently they targeted Sinn Féin TDs. Prominent members of fascist organisations have taken part in these demonstrations. It is […]
Comrade Doran in the last Voice made several thoughtful observations. To this reader, his remark that Irish union members are “infected with a petty-bourgeois outlook, one that views trade union membership as an insurance policy or a last resort, not as organs of solidarity and struggle,” stood out most. His […]
As inflation is making essential goods ever more expensive, increasing numbers of people are relying on food banks. Politicians and the ruling class blame covid-19 and the war in Ukraine for the “cost of living crisis.” Working-class people know otherwise.
As we enter 2023, working people are still affected by long-standing problems: shortage of housing, crumbling health service, low wages, precarious work, spiralling rents, and growing inequality. Many of these conditions plague people in the Six Counties, with the added complication caused by British-imposed partition: sectarianism, a built-in unstable political […]
The new year begins with no let-up in the assault on the working class. The cost of food, clothes, heat, rent and mortgages continues to rise. Homelessness is increasing. The election of Leo Varadkar as taoiseach will probably result in an intensification of this assault, in the interests of native […]
“Buggins’s turn” is a disparaging term meaning appointment to positions by rotation rather than by merit. No Brownie points for identifying Leo “the-classified-file-sharer” Varadkar as the Dáil’s current Mr Buggins. Even the chronically right-wing Fine Gael-supporting Sunday Independent was unable to get excited about him swapping chairs with Micheál Martin. […]
The health of any nation can be measured in many ways. Life expectancy, infant mortality and mental health statistics are just some of the main measures. All those statistics are in turn linked to the levels of inequality and exploitation in any society. The level of poverty, as a consequence, […]
On 21 December 2022 the Irish News in Belfast published a front-page report that a senior Irish government official was actively spying for the British government. The report was based on an interview with a former member of the British army ’s “Force Research Unit,” which operated both side of […]
In November’s Socialist Voice I wrote an article on the High-Level Report on Collective Bargaining, entitled “An opportunity, not a panacea.” In it I suggested: “For this opportunity will only be of value if the movement invests significant time, resources and energy in the organisation, structurally, of workers in their […]
Getting off the bus in O’Connell Street, considered the main street in Dublin, can be a shock for tourists and people new to the city alike. In between the new hotels and shopping centres, the decay in the older buildings is clearly visible, which is sad for such an otherwise […]