Partisan • Patriotic • Internationalist
The word “democracy” (from the Greek dēmos, meaning people, and kratos, meaning power) is certainly the most used and abused word in the world of politics—particularly bourgeois politics. It is used to mean whatever capitalist power wants it to mean. It can mean peace; it can mean war, death, and destruction; it can mean […]
Forty-eight TDs and twenty-nine senators are landlords, with others owning shares in companies and some owning both shares and rented property. The majority of landlords are in Fine Gael, followed by Fianna Fáil. Other parties with landlords or shares include Sinn Féin, the Green Party, and the Labour Party, while […]
Under the slogan “National and Class Unity,” the Communist Party of Ireland held its 26th National Congress over the weekend of 17 and 18 September in Dublin. The congress brought together communists from around Ireland to discuss and vote upon the political resolution and a new constitution. It was the […]
While the world looks on at the proxy war between Russia and the United States taking place in Ukraine, in which the Russian and Ukrainian people suffer, the continuing ethnic cleansing takes place in occupied Palestine. The Ukrainian flag is ubiquitous in the West; what are the colours of the […]
Reproductive rights are under attack around the world, and while small gains have been made in Ireland since the repeal of the 8th Amendment, the Government has continued to fail to deliver free, safe, legal, local and accessible abortion services for all who need them. As it stands, abortion in […]
The Government is attempting to push the state pension age to 70 by the back door. It is proposing to do this by adding 24 per cent to the pension rate if people forgo their pension and work on till they are 70. By working to 70 you give up […]
There has been a lot surmising of over the recently announced results of the census in the North of Ireland. For the first time since partition, Catholics now outnumber Protestants there. The census found that 42 per cent of people in the North are Catholics, 37 per cent are Protestants, […]
Sashi Tharoor, the Indian politician who wrote a book on British colonial plunder, An Era of Darkness (2016), once made a satirical remark: “They say the sun never sets on the British empire; that’s because even the god did not trust the British in the dark.” The Queen’s death and mourning have […]
On 24 September there was a massive turn-out in Dublin to protest against the increase in the cost of living. More than 20,000 people took to the streets—and it could have been higher except for traffic hold-ups in Kildare, which resulted in delays of more than four hours for those […]
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 […]