Partisan • Patriotic • Internationalist
Two bilingual tanka, in Irish and English, “Hail the Deserters” and “Weeping in their Graves,” 31-syllable poems (5-7-5-7-7), in response to work by two Irish artists, William Orpen and Seán Keating. When the First World War broke out, Orpen’s assistant, Seán Keating, returned to Ireland, avoiding conscription, but Orpen stayed […]
On the 1st of February this year the Cuban government began drafting a new family code for the country’s constitution. This new family code will change how the state sees a family, which will broaden rights for many citizens, including children and the LGBTQ+ community. The drafting of the new […]
This is an old story that is told in Marxist circles, still relevant, and never loses its novelty. It’s a conversation between a little girl and her mother during a cold winter evening in London when the father has not returned after going out in search of a job. The […]
At the end of July the Communist Party of Ireland participated in an on-line International Marxist Parties Forum organised by the Communist Party of China. The theme of the forum was “Adapting Marxism to the National Conditions and the Times of the 21st Century.” The CPI was represented by Eugene […]
…a profit of €4,193 per worker. Coincidentally, Go-Ahead Bus pay their drivers €4,000 per year less than Dublin Bus pay theirs…
In the 26 Counties there is a housing crisis, a shamefully inadequate two-tier health service, a decrepit public transport system, and a grave shortage of affordable accommodation for third-level students. As always, the impact of this failure by the state is felt most acutely by working people. It raises the […]
In the official ideology of the Irish state, the Industrial Development Authority comes in for special praise as one of the main agencies that helped “modernise” the Irish economy—i.e. opened it up to penetration by foreign, mostly American, capital. It has been lauded as a latter-day David that outfought Goliath […]
In the July Voice, Nicola Lawlor proposed that “individual unions should concentrate on… strengthening themselves and militantly pursuing big pay claims.” She argues that unions should not be “remov[ed from] pay bargaining [at the workplace] site of struggle and mobilisation.” Localised bargaining is “an instrument… for increasing class-consciousness and militancy […]
Students of the coup d’état of 1922 will be interested in the following letter, which appeared in the Freeman’s Journal of 5 August 1922 under the headline “Irregulars’ Eager Allies | Policy of the Communist Party of Ireland.” The following excerpts from The Workers’ Republic of 28th July—the “official organ […]
It is often said that to know how things work you need to live that experience. Over the last number of years, be it on my holidays in the occupied Six Counties or listening to friends and family, I have heard so many stories of a system that isn’t working […]
On Saturday 25 June members and comrades of the CPI joined a protest organised by the Connolly Youth Movement on Rosie Hackett Bridge to protest against the take-over of pride by companies that solely see us as a means to profit, by people who have historically oppressed LGBT minorities and […]
This month Connolly Books will play host to two book launches. On 15 July, at 7pm, Conor Magahy will launch his first book, Posh Mackers, a moving and at times humorous account of his early childhood in Dublin, set between the years 1978 and 1988. It tells the story […]
The short life of Sidney Keyes (1922–1943) is in itself a striking metaphor for the cruelty and futility of war. He was killed in action before his twenty-first birthday in Tunisia. His book The Cruel Solstice (1944) can be read on Faded Page (tinyurl.com/4282dd4u). Keyes was an unusual poet, […]
Engels said about Shelley: “Byron and Shelley are read almost exclusively by the lower classes; no ‘respectable’ man is likely to have the latter’s work on his table without coming into the most terrible disrepute.” Born shortly after the French Revolution, Shelley was heir to a substantial estate and […]
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 […]
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 […]