Analysis

New LookLeft out now! In shops countrywide!

March 10, 2013 · Leave a Comment

Ireland’s leading magazine for progressive news, views and solutions – available in Easons stores and selected newsagents across the country – 48 pages for just €2/£1.50 Find out where to get your copy.   In the latest issue of LookLeft: THE 1913 LOCKOUT 1913 It’s importance then and now – historian BRIAN HANLEY discusses the events of 1913 and what they tell us about modern Ireland Lockout Timeline – the events leading up to the Lockout and what happened Lockout Events – calendar of some of the major events planned to commemorate the Lockout FEATURES: No Left turn for Northern... [Read the full story]

Latest

The Trials of Citizen Garland

September 7, 2011 · Leave a Comment

After over 50 years of involvement in political struggle Sean Garland faces one of his toughest fights. Kevin Brannigan meets the man wanted by the US. On the evening of the 7th October 2005 Sean Garland was sitting in a Belfast restaurant enjoying a meal with Workers’ Party colleagues prior to the start of the party’s Ard Fheis, when a squad of burly PSNI officers entered the building. “When the cops walked in it never crossed my mind that they were there for me. They were dressed like Star Wars characters with all their helmets and blacked out visors on. The sergeant was a smallish individual,... [Read the full story]

Left Debate

LookLeft Forum – Erik Olin Wright on Realising a Left Alternative

March 6, 2013 · Leave a Comment

Distinguished Marxist scholar Erik Olin Wright spoke to the LookLeft Forum on 2nd March on the topic of ‘Realising a Left Alternative’. Erik spoke on three different ideas of how social change will be achieved: the ruptural (revelutionary), interstitial (cooperative) and symbiotic (social democratic) approaches. He outlined his own approach which combines the symbiotic and interstitial and discussed the trade-offs and political considerations involved in pursuing each strategy. There was then a period of audience feedback, where people questioned Erik’s belief that a ruptural... [Read the full story]

History

The Legacy of James Connolly

October 25, 2012 · Leave a Comment

Guess who’s back? Historian Aindrias Ó Cathasaigh considers the life and ideas of Irish socialism’s most important thinker, whose legacy is crucial to shaping the new Ireland: This year marks the centenary of James Connolly coming back to Ireland from the US, the start of six hectic years of activity ended only by the firing squad. But Connolly is returning again in our own day. The public have voted him one of ‘Ireland’s Greatest’ and new documentaries have told the fascinating story of his life, introducing him to a new generation and reawakening the interest of others. Connolly was... [Read the full story]

Guest writers

The Great Mortgage Swindle

November 21, 2010 · Leave a Comment

A generation in the Republic has been left in hock to the banks by one of modern Ireland’s biggest cons. Conor McCabe explodes some of the myths that drove the property bubble. There are those who will tell you that Irish people have a unique love-affair with property, that home-ownership is part of our DNA – a kind of Celtic mortgage double-helix which drives us to buy houses regardless of cost, need or availability. It is not just the usual suspects of estate agents, mortgage brokers and rent-a-quote economists who make this assumption – it is one that cuts across the political... [Read the full story]

World

Basques search for a political way forward

December 26, 2011 · Leave a Comment

After over 40 years of intermittent violence which claimed many lives the Basque guerrilla group ETA renounced armed struggle in favour of political activity earlier this year but as Diarmuid Breatnach outlines the Spanish establishment has been slow to reciprocate. ETA declared in January its six months-old official ceasefire to be “general, permanent …and verifiable by the international community.” A consultation process among those who support independence for the Basque areas controlled by the Spanish and French states had been taking place throughout 2010, cumulating in a leading... [Read the full story]

News

Grotesque pension payments to former Ministers must end

Legalisation must be introduced to curtail the massive pension payments being made to former Bertie Ahern and Brian Cowen laughing at Irish citizensGovernment Ministers – estimated to be costing the Republic nearly €9 million a year – Francis Donohoe reports Taxpayers’ money is being paid out in pensions to approximately 100 former Ministers,... Read more of this article

Turning back the clock on housing

The Northern Ireland Executive seems intent on allowing profiteers to once more take control of housing provision, with citizens set to lose out, reports Justin O’Hagan. Throughout Northern Ireland in the 1960s many thousands of people were living in cramped and squalid conditions in Edwardian or Victorian houses, many of which were unfit for habitation.... Read more of this article

Irvine Welsh backs bridge for fellow Hibs man Connolly

Scottish author Irvine Welsh is the latest high profile cultural figure to back the campaign to name the new transport bridge over the Liffey in Dublin in honour of James Connolly. Welsh told LookLeft, “Connolly was a true man of the people, a great socialist and anti-imperialist. He was also the best kit man Hibernian FC ever had.” Both the Trainspotting... Read more of this article

Joan Burton’s broken promise will hurt poorest families

Paul Dillon Budget 2013 breaks commitments given by Social Protection Minister, Joan Burton, in April 2012 when she promised not to go ahead with plans to restrict the One Parent Family Payment to those families with Children under seven unless significant changes in childcare were outlined this year. The payment was made up until the child was 18 when... Read more of this article

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