Partisan • Patriotic • Internationalist
Juvenile and other immature males seem to have a morbid fascination with fascism, or rather with the trappings of fascism: uniforms, flags, marching, and of course shouting and threatening. But they are only trappings. There’s more to fascism than that. In various European countries where “normal” capitalism is collapsing, fascism—the […]
In this article I will attempt to explain the new common agricultural policy (CAP) deal that will be implemented in 2023. First I will give a basic description of the CAP agreement: 1. There will be a linear cut of 25 per cent of direct payments. These cuts will be […]
■ Douglas Stuart, Shuggie Bain (New York: Grove Press, 2020) Douglas Stuart won the 2020 Booker Prize for his debut novel, Shuggie Bain, set in his home town, Glasgow, in the 1980s. Like many working-class writers, Stuart found himself doubting the value of his story. “I used to ask myself, […]
In what other country would there be web sites offering the equivalent of “funny Irish place-names”?—which in fact are not Irish at all but corruptions. And the great majority of these are not even corruptions in the usual linguistic sense—i.e. changes made over time by the usage of people (in […]
Over the period 2010–19 the expansion in the dairy industry in the 26-Country state, thanks to the quota restrictions being lifted by the business organisation known as the EU, has resulted in an increase in the land area allocated to dairy farming. At the farm gate level the expansion has […]
On 11 July the world’s media gleefully reported that there were protests in Cuba. As expected, no context was given, just flippant explanations about shortages leading to “historic unrest.” It is astounding that the media managed to miss the fact that Cuba is in a situation of enduring the effects […]
Fianna Fáil, at 5 per cent, had a record low share of the vote in the recent by-election. The response of their director of elections, Jim O’Callaghan, was, “We must do better on housing.” This is their strategy: lead people to believe that this was a wake-up call, leading to […]
As we move out of the period of pandemic, we would all like to establish some form of normality in our lives. But one thing is certain: workers must resist any return to the pre-covid “normal.” That was an economy based on low pay, with precarious employment, precarious shelter, a […]
The dog-whistle calls of “Freedom for Cuba” that reverberated round the world on 11 July, emanating from a mix of forces in Cuba, which were carefully manipulated and crafted by the CIA and US anti-Cuban forces abroad, shed a great deal of light not only on US foreign policy hypocrisy […]
A house is not just a building made of bricks and concrete: it’s a nest made of dreams and memories. When such a place crumbles in front of one’s eyes it is heartbreaking. Approximately five thousand families have faced the heartbreak because of the mica issue, which caused cracks in […]
Statement by the Communist Party of Ireland 18 June 2021 The resignation of Edwin Poots as leader of the Democratic Unionist Party, and the implosion of the DUP, should not come as a surprise to anyone with a modicum of understanding of the entrenched anti-democratic nature of unionism and the […]
Full marks to Leo Varadkar for creativity. When it comes to offering the public something imaginative, he is hard to beat. He has provided us with many servings. Remember his claim during a period of neo-liberal austerity that welfare recipients were damaging the economy? Then there was his insistence that […]
The Irish government, aided and abetted by its British counterpart, has been trying to assist and solve the “crisis in unionism” since the DUP began to self-destruct last month. This is missing the reality of what is happening and ignoring the elephant in the room. The crisis is not in […]
■ This is the text of a paper given by the general secretary of the CPI that formed part of an exchange of views in June 2021, a conversation between left republican activists and Protestant religious leaders to discuss the future of the North of Ireland. First of all I […]
“Why do we work?” seems like an odd question. Sure everyone works, do they not? Or the majority of people do, one way or another. And if you can’t, don’t or won’t work there is every chance you are seen as lazy, a sponger, or worse. But there has to […]
■ Reprinted from People’s News, 27 June 2021 Last month, German Defence Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer and her French counterpart, Florence Parly, met to discuss the Future Combat Air System (FCAS) programme. This came amid reports that German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative government is anxious to have the FCAS programme’s financing […]