Angie Murphy (1956-2010): Tireless Campaigner and Activist

Tom Crilly remembers Workers’ Party Ringsend stalwart Angie Murphy (née Whelan)
Life determined there was one major issue for Angie Murphy, ‘health’. Back in the 1980s the-then Health Minister, Barry Desmond T.D., included the closure of Dublin’s inner city hospitals in his plan for ‘a rationalization of the health services’. Angie condemned the Fine Gael / [...]

Shell to Sea: The Struggle Continues

Shell to Sea: A Mayo Community Continues to Confront Shell’s Demands, writes Shell to Sea activist Stewart Reddin.
The environmental catastrophe and the tragic deaths of 11 oil rig workers caused by the explosion on BP’s Deepwater Horizon platform in the Gulf of Mexico has illuminated the blatant disregard oil corporations have for the protection of [...]

Cork: A Tale of Two Cities

Workers’ Party Cork Councillor Ted Tynan discusses how new statistics released by Cork City Council highlight the stark disparities in access to health, education and other important services between the Northside and Southside of the city.
Published in June, the City Council report – a Strategic Plan for the Library Service 2010-2014 – contains two maps [...]

Sectarianism and Racism Must be Defeated

The establishment of the Tomás MacGiolla Centre for Citizenship and Reconciliation will help the direct confrontation of the related problems of sectarianism and racism, writes Seán Garland. 
Sectarianism and its near relations racism and xenophobic nationalism, are menaces princi­pally because they poison relations between members of different traditions; stultify the creation of a decent society for [...]

Defence Forces Being Drawn into EU Army

The full incorporation of the Defence Forces into foreign military alliances has come a step closer with the announcement that Irish troops are to participate in “warfare training” as part of the EU Nordic Battle­group set-up.
Troops based at Collins Barracks in Cork are to travel to Sweden next October to take part in the military [...]

Save Our Swimming Pools

A number of Dublin working class communities have united to fight council plans to close public swimming pools that are a vital leisure and fitness resource in their areas.
Dublin City Council is due to close three public Swimming pools at Coolock, Crumlin and Seán Mc­Dermott Street in the north inner city in the late summer.
The [...]

Anti-Fascist Action: Combatting Fascism in Ireland

The activities and politics of Anti – Fascist Action (AFA) Ireland are as relevant now as they were 18 years ago when the organisation was founded, writes Bernard O’Reilly.
AFA is dedicated to confronting fascism, both physically and politi­cally, in whatever guise it might take. From the self-styled street fighter boneheads of the Celtic Wolves, to [...]

People Before Profit in Derry

Paula Geraghty reports on Eamonn McCann’s Westminster campaign.
Veteran campaigner and SWP member, Eamonn McCann stood in the Foyle constituency in the West­minster elections as a People Before Profit Alliance candidate.
McCann’s campaign was launched amid poetry and song, with its own campaign song by Paddy Nash and the Happy Enchi­ladas declaring a new manifesto for an [...]

Old Age Pensions Cut While the Elite Look After Themselves

Malachy Steenson discusses the pensions scandal
The issue of serving TDs re­ceiving pensions for their time as ministers, while still working, has been the subject of much debate recently. Eventually those still working as TDs indicated that they would return their pen­sions after a media onslaught.
As usual, the intent of those in the political establishment has been [...]

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 [...]

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