Recently I had the good fortune to travel to the United States for a week. It was, to say the least, an eye-opener. Among the grandeur of the superwealth that I witnessed in New York I saw sights that for me were emotionally draining and shocking. I went […]
Previous Articles
Left victory in Colombia
The electoral victory of Gustavo Petro in Colombia is, without a doubt, one of the most significant political developments in Latin America in the last decade. Colombia has traditionally been a stronghold of conservatism. The left and social movements have been routinely devastated for seven decades of unabashed right-wing […]
On transphobia
Recently, right-wing and liberal media have been attacking trans people in increasingly vicious ways. How can we analyse this from a left-wing viewpoint? In 1919 Lenin said the following in a speech on anti-Semitism: “The hate of the workers and peasants, the landowners and capitalists tried to divert against […]
Another blind alley
If the old adage that “you can know a man by the company he keeps” is true, then it seems the New Connolly Youth Movement is in a very confused place. On 18 June the New CYM attended the gathering of the Belfast-based Unity group, which has “reconstituted” itself as […]
To fix these problems we need socialism
As the cost of living grows ever higher, and more families are choosing between eating and paying bills—with some parents skipping meals so their children can eat—we continue to produce an over-abundance. We produce such an over-abundance of food that no one should be without food. Roughly a third […]
The CPI and the Republic
The Communist Party of Ireland was not long formed when it had to grapple with the creation of the Irish Free State by British imperialism. The party was the first to recognise the class nature of the Treaty, and believed that the republicans could win, but only if they adopted […]
Inflation and starvation
Capitalism is a system that has an innate tendency to get into a cul-de-sac of crisis, and the only way it knows for coming out of crisis is by further exploitation of the working class. The cost-of-living crisis—caused by inflation, which eats up the earnings of the working class […]
What is the trade union movement fighting for?
An interesting but not entirely new debate has begun in Socialist Voice in recent issues on the question of “social partnership” and national wage agreements. On the one hand, Jimmy Doran has condemned “social partnership” outright as class betrayal, with strong statements that it is anti-democratic, embodies insider dealing, […]
Why does Ireland refuse to campaign for peace in Ukraine?
The world still applauds the great effort that our government made in advocating negotiations for peace that led to a settlement, and the 1998 Good Friday Agreement on this island. So why is our present government rejecting neutrality and refusing to lead the campaign for negotiations for peace to […]
Protecting the privileged
This year marks a century since the foundation of the 26-County state. Difficult as it may be to believe, the powers that be are now preparing to celebrate what they will describe as a successful political entity. There will be no mention of the hundreds of thousands forced into […]
OPINION: National wage agreements: Another view
National wage agreements with a private-sector aspect may re-emerge, given the current social costs of capitalism (the “cost-of-living crisis”). Within the CPI contributors have put forward hostile assessments of wage agreements—see Jimmy Doran, “Social partnership? No, thanks” (Socialist Voice, July 2020) or “Talk given by Graham Harrington from the Communist […]
Housing: Crisis caused by design
This is not the first time the citizens of Ireland have been faced with a housing emergency. Back in the 1930s and 40s it was solved by building public housing—and it can be done again. From the 1930s until the 1950s, 55 per cent of all housing was built by […]
Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael: Marching in step
We are living in difficult and dangerous times, with every chance that things may get worse. Global inflation is driving up the cost of living, the impact of which is felt most severely in working-class communities. Against this backdrop of economic hardship there looms the spectre of war in Ukraine […]
LGBTQ: A united struggle
On 27 June 1974 ten brave souls marched from the Department of Justice in St Stephen’s Green to the British embassy in Merrion Road to highlight the criminalisation of homosexuality in Ireland. This was Dublin’s first pride march. The laws they marched against were the Offences Against the Person Act […]
On another man’s wound
In a Facebook post on 13 May condemning the Israeli military’s attack on the funeral of the murdered Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, the Connolly Youth Movement made the following claim: “As Irish Republicans we know what it is like to be harassed and attacked while mourning our dead.” During […]
Tourism killing Irish-language communities
“Is it hard to see death when it is disguised and tricked out in the surface trappings of life?” John Healy, Death of an Irish Town. If most Irish people think of the country’s Irish-speaking regions in Cos. Donegal, Galway and Kerry at all, they largely think of them in […]