Partisan • Patriotic • Internationalist
The French Revolution sparked great hopes for the rise of the bourgeoisie, the abolition of feudal structures, and the establishment of a capitalist society. Napoleon centralised power in his person, established an authoritarian regime, and crowned himself emperor in 1804. His wars in Europe served both territorial expansion and the […]
The rumour mill is suggesting that a General Election in the Republic is perhaps closer than previously indicated by the Taoiseach. Tensions between the coalition partners over issues such as taxation of zoned farmland may cause the government to fall, forcing the incumbents to go to the country. Fuelling this […]
Hotel Lux: An Intimate History of Communism’s Forgotten, by Maurice J Casey – review Richard Mullen The blurb on the back cover of Hotel Lux reads: “A series of romances wrapped in a detective story, disguised as a narrative history of international communism, Hotel Lux uncovers a world of forgotten […]
Rising from €120M in 2021 to €700M in 2023, investments in mining in Serbia are on trajectory to surpass all other areas of foreign direct investment dominating the Serbian economy. While Rio Tinto, the British-Australian multinational mining company, is not the only corporation in the game for resources in Serbia, […]
On September 28th 1864, a public meeting was summoned by George Odger, president of the London Council of Trade Unions, and Randal Cremer, secretary of the Mason’s Union. The meeting took place at St. Martin’s Hall, now Queen’s Theatre, which had a capacity for 4,000 people. In a letter to […]
When Ireland formally recognised the state of Palestine in May, Taoiseach Simon Harris urged countries to “use every lever at their disposal” to bring about a ceasefire. When the official figure of Palestinian deaths topped 40,000 in mid-August the lever he invoked was an “urgent review” of the EU-Israel Association […]
On 19th August 1945 the Viet Minh, led by the Indochinese Communist Party, which would later become the Communist Party of Vietnam, took over the capital city of Vietnam, Hanoi. Within two weeks, Viet Minh forces liberated most of the villages and rural towns across north and central Vietnam. Describing […]
James Baldwin was born one hundred years ago in Harlem, New York, 2 August 1924. Baldwin’s stepfather David, a Pentecostal preacher, was a factory worker, earning too little to provide for his family of nine children. His mother Berdis, a migrant from the South, worked in domestic service. The young […]
The airways and newspapers have been full of discussion around the “housing crisis”, its nature and possible causes and effects. What was clear from the recent local election results is that the majority of those who voted did so for parties who support the status quo, who support the economic […]
Election coverage has become a dominant part of the entertainment/propaganda sector that passes for news coverage in Ireland and the rest of the capitalist world. The soap opera that is the US Presidential election has become prime-time viewing with its twists and turns, the latest being the attempted assasination of […]
To the Marxist it is indisputable that a revolution is impossible without a revolutionary situation; furthermore, it is not every revolutionary situation that leads to revolution. What, generally speaking, are the symptoms of a revolutionary situation? We shall certainly not be mistaken if we indicate the following three major symptoms: […]
FÓGRA: Féile na bhFlaitheartach 2024“Idirnáisiúnachas Thomáis agus Liam Uí Fhlaithearta”“The internationalism of Tom and Liam O’Flaherty” A chairde, Is cúis áthais dúinn é a fhógairt gur ar an Satharn 24 Lúnasa agus Dé Domhnaigh 25 Lúnasa a bheas Féile na bhFlaitheartach ar siúl i mbliana ar Inis Mór, Árainn. Mar […]
Newslessness is a bilingual poem in Irish and English by Gabriel Rosenstock, in response to a work of art by the influential German artist Hans Haacke. Hans Haacke, News, 1969 (Fair Use) Newslessness What a day! a day like any other day a day full of news but unlike the previous […]
The day after the ruling elites of the EU elected pro-Israel Ursula Von der Leyen as President of the European Commission, the International Court of Justice ruled that the occupation of Palestine is illegal. There has been almost no coverage of this historic ruling by the western media. In December […]
In June, RTÉ’s Hot Mess podcast featured an interview with Roger Hallam. In the weeks to come, Hallam, co-founder of Extinction Rebellion and Just Stop Oil, would have received the longest ever sentence for non-violent protest in front of a British court. The sentence was on the charges of “conspiracy […]
How spontaneous are violent right-wing actions currently taking place in both jurisdictions on this island? There can be little doubt that sinister elements are playing a role organising these disturbances but what is the magnitude of the threat posed by these agitators. Are they just a small number of dangerous […]