Bringing Football Fans Together: The Setanta Cup

Kevin Brannigan reports
This season’s all-island Setanta Cup ended with Pat Fenlon pick­ing up his fifth title as Bohemians manager with his side overcoming Dublin rivals St. Patrick’s Athletic at Tallaght Stadium.
The 2009/10 Setanta Cup was the fifth instalment of the cross-border competition and the fourth year in a row in which a team from the [...]

Tory-LibDem Budget “Worst Single Attack on Workers Since Thatcher”

The British ruling ConDem coalition’s emergency Budget has been denounced as “the worst single attack on the working class since the days of Margaret Thatcher” by the Workers’ Party.
“Although the ConDems pretend it’s a ‘fair and balanced budget’, it is in fact a massive onslaught on the already poor and disadvantaged”, WP spokesman Paddy Lynn [...]

Removing Religion from the Classroom

Stephen O’Rowe writes
Late in April, the Irish Federation of University Teachers, the union representing university lecturers, put forward a proposal for the removla of compulsory religion courses from teacher training colleges. The aim of the proposal is to abolish religious courses in teacher training, replacing it with an ethics module, leaving religious modules optional [...]

Here’s to You Mr. Robinson

The defeat of DUP leader Peter Robinson provided a main talking point of the recent Westminster elections but with Tory cuts com­ing down the line John Lowry sees an opportunity, and a need, for the Left to come together and provide real representation for the working class in Northern Ireland.
The success of the Alliance Par­ty’s [...]

Generation Bailout? Putting Jobs Creation First

If the state can become the bail-out of last resort for failed financial institutions, it can become the employer of last resort for young people, according to Unite Economist Michael Taft.
If, as Keynes said last century, ‘you look after unemployment the budget will look after itself’, then no wonder the Government has found itself in [...]

These are names that every man and woman ought to know

Drawing on documents discovered in the archives of the Dublin Unitarian Church – that traces its history back to the Dissenter community – author and trade union activist Fergus Whelan provides an insight into the largely forgotten history of Ireland’s first generation of radical republicans.
Irish republicanism came into being in the late 18th century with [...]

Mapping the Golden Circle

That a small clique dominated the board rooms of both major private and state enter­prises during the Celtic Tiger years is a now a proven fact thanks to exhaustive research by progressive think tank Tasc. 
In the report “Mapping the Golden Circle”, TASC has revealed the extent of the network across 40 of Ireland’s top private [...]

Does Unionism Have a Left Foot?

PUP local government candidate Stewart Finn (Victoria Ward, East Belfast) outlines the democratic social­ist concepts which underpin the policies of the Progressive Unionist Party (PUP)
Not all Unionists are conserva­tive – why are the parties? The Progressive Unionist Party emerged from decades of under- and mis-representation of the Unionist Working Class by those traditional Unionist Parties. These [...]

The End of the Partnership

Aidan Regan examines the challenges facing the trade union movement and argues for a greater focus on increasing union membership