Permanent Revolution - Category

“The workers... battle-cry must be: 'The Permanent Revolution.'” — Marx and Engels, 1850

home | action | about us | sitemap | publications | recent | all | feed

Mon 28, September 2009 @ 21:42

Ireland: Trade unions retreat, government attacks

In early April the Irish government, a coalition of Fianna Fáil and the Green Party, introduced an emergency budget, the second in six months. It was a swingeing austerity budget that fell squarely on the shoulders of the workers while hardly touching big business and the rich. It introduced spending cuts of C= 1.5 billion, mostly from social welfare, and raised taxes by C= 1.8bn. Eighty percent of these taxes fell on PAYE payers – that is the workers.

Thu 18, June 2009 @ 17:52

Credit crunch: Ireland turns into another Iceland

More than 100,000 workers crammed into the streets of Dublin on 21 February for a protest organised by the Irish Congress of Trade Unions. Public and private sector workers were incensed by the government’s plunder of Euro 7bn from the National Pensions Reserve Fund to bail out Allied Irish Banks and Bank of Ireland. This was money originally set aside to finance the pensions bill of public servants retiring after 2025.

Sun 22, March 2009 @ 19:59

Ireland 1969: the year of mass revolt

Forty years ago the mobilised masses of the nationalist minority in Northern Ireland took the fight against their social and national oppression into their own hands. It was a year of crucial political opportunities in which Irish revolutionary socialists were severely put to the test.

Thu 19, February 2009 @ 21:05

Waterford Glass Occupation: nationalise without compensation!

Waterford workers have been in occupation of the Waterford Crystal plant for almost three weeks now. Maureen Gallagher reports from Ireland.

Tue 02, December 2008 @ 17:51

Ireland: The shining light dims, the Celtic tiger chokes

In 1997 the Economist magazine announced that Ireland was “The Celtic Tiger: Europe’s shining light”. They were referring to a period of exceptionally fast growth through the 1990s, when the Irish economy was transformed from Britain’s poor relation, into Europe’s fastest growing economy.

Sat 04, October 2008 @ 13:16

Connolly’s life; Between Comrades letters and correspondence Review

James Connolly is an icon on the Irish socialist and republican left. Connolly cut his political teeth in Scotland where he was involved with the Socialist Democratic Federation and the Scottish Socialist Federation before coming to Ireland in 1896. Following the failure of the Irish Socialist Republican Party (ISRP) which he founded that year,

Tue 27, May 2008 @ 22:23

Referendum: vote no to the Lisbon treaty! (PR8)

Mon 03, March 2008 @ 20:04

Celtic Tiger on a long leash held by Uncle Sam - The Corporate Takeover of Ireland (PR7)

Kieran Allen

Irish Academic Press / 2007 / C=19.95

Thu 22, November 2007 @ 19:30

IRA renounces the armed struggle - 05 August 2005

“The leadership of Oglaigh na hEireann has formally ordered an end to the armed campaign. This will take effect from 4pm this afternoon.”

Tue 09, October 2007 @ 15:28

Irish elections disappoint Sinn Fein (PR5)

Thu 30, August 2007 @ 19:12

Aer Lingus Dispute

Aer Lingus has recently announced its decision to move its operations from Shannon to Belfast including all four London Heathrow landing slots leaving Shannon with none. This decision to move to the more profitable route is in keeping with the aim of driving workers wages down to yellow pack levels of pay....By Maureen Gallagher & Andy Johnston

Thu 12, July 2007 @ 22:39

The Northern Ireland Assembly: And The collapse of republicanism (PR4) Spring 07

As Gerry Adams and Ian Paisley prepare to work together in the new power-sharing executive Maureen Harrington and Keith Harvey examine the path they have taken and its consequences for the Irish working class.

Thu 12, July 2007 @ 22:04

Sinn Fein – privatization and pragmatism (PR4) Spring 07

What will Sinn Fein be like in the Executive when it is up and running? If the record of their ministers in the Assembly between 1999 and 2002 is a guide, they will act as bourgeois reformists pushing privatisation plans and backing off from progressive policies.

Thu 12, July 2007 @ 22:01

Transcending the sectarian divide (PR4) Spring 07

Northern Ireland remains a deeply divided society and the Good Friday Agreement (GFA) and Stormont Assembly, entrenched and institutionalised that divide.

Fri 01, June 2007 @ 14:47

Derry anti-war movement - PR2

On Wednesday 9 August anti war protesters in Derry broke into the local plant of US missile manufacturer Raytheon, one of the largest arms companies in the world and supplier of guidance equipment for many of the missiles used recently by Israel in their invasion of the Lebanon.

Sat 21, April 2007 @ 16:17

Water Crisis in Galway

“When you have inadequately treated sewage flowing into surface waters, it increases the risk of cryptosporidium. And when you have inadequately treated drinking water that also increases the risk.”…writes Maureen Gallagher from PR Ireland…

Wed 14, March 2007 @ 20:47

After Northern Ireland’s elections: devolution or dissolution?

Arch-enemies, Ian Paisley and Gerry Adams meet for the first time to discuss the modalities and timing of power-sharing in Northern Ireland. But Keith Harvey agues that the provinces' confessional political system locks in sectariansm.

Sun 04, March 2007 @ 14:57

Support the Raytheon 9

Nine activists who took part in an occupation of the American arms corporation Raytheon's offices in Derry have been charged with aggravated burglary and unlawful assembly. The bail terms imposed on them effectively remove their right to take part in political activity.

Thu 25, January 2007 @ 19:32

Adams promotes unionist police force to republicans as death squad collusion revealed

"We were tortured, starved, brutalised by a regime that the republican movement is collaborating with today.”
So said dissident republican Brendan Hughes, who led the first hunger strike in Long Kesh in 1980, on RTE’s This Week on 21 January. Maureen Harrington in Galway reports on the heated debate within the republican community over policing

Mon 04, December 2006 @ 11:18

Where now for Sinn Fein and the NI Assembly?

On 24 November maverick loyalist Michael Stone entered Stormont - home of the Northern Ireland Assembly – with gun and bomb while Sinn Fein and the Democratic Unionist Party were deciding whether to take the necessary steps to rescue the Northern Ireland Assembly. Maureen Gallagher assesses the prospects.

Thu 16, November 2006 @ 22:09

The Irish Civil Rights Movement - 1969 - The year of mass revolt

Nearly 40 years ago the mobilised masses of the nationalist minority in Northern Ireland took the fight against their social and national oppression into their own hands. It was a year of crucial political opportunities in which Irish revolutionary socialists were severely put to the test.

Sat 14, October 2006 @ 20:39

The Belfast Agreement gets a new injection of life

When Ian Paisley, chief bigot of loyalist Protestantism in Northern Ireland, compliments the Catholic prelate he habitually called the Scarlet Whore of Rome, one assumes it presages something important is about to happen on the political scene, says Andy Johnson

Mon 09, October 2006 @ 18:52

Rethinking the road to power in Ireland - 1997

Ireland: The Promise of Socialism is by written by three members of Socialist Democracy – the Irish section of the United Secretariat of the Fourth International (USFI).

Sun 08, October 2006 @ 23:01

"IRA is no more", but Paisley still won't play ball

The British backed commission that monitors the Provisional IRA reported last week. It gave the IRA a clean bill of health while admitting the Loyalist gangs still operate. Yet having gone from ceasefire to surrender Sinn Fein still cannot get the Unionists to agree power sharing, reports Maureen Gallagher from Galway.

Fri 15, September 2006 @ 23:45

Ireland: apprentices fight back against fees

In the early 1990s a Labour Party minister of education, in the then Coalition Government and under pressure from the unions, abolished third level student fees under the slogan "Education - a right not a privilege"

Sat 09, September 2006 @ 14:52

Elections deepen crisis - 2003

Maureen Connolly surveys the wreckage of Blair's plans for reviving the Northern Ireland Assembly

The elections to the Northern Ireland Assembly last month has produced a sharply polarised political stalemate between irish republicanism and the most reactionary populist wing of loyalism.

Sat 02, September 2006 @ 13:04

Ireland: 1916 Easter Rising

Ninety years ago, the Irish Easter Rising was launched. While the reformist leaders around the world condemned it, VI Lenin and Leon Trotsky saluted the doomed insurrection. Mark H remembers the lessons

Mon 28, August 2006 @ 13:31

Reforming the Orange State? - 1994

In a St Patrick’s Day speech this year Gerry Adams said that, “Unionists can be persuaded to recognise that they share a common peaceful destiny with their fellow countrymen and countrywomen in the common territory of Ireland.” Edward McW casts doubt on his optimism.

Mon 28, August 2006 @ 13:20

Trotskyism versus economism on Ireland

The February 1989 issue of Lutte de Classe / Class Struggle, published by the International Communist Union (ICU), the international grouping run by the French organisation Lutte Ouvrière (LO), carried an article on the armed struggle in Northern Ireland. We print here a reply from our Irish section, the Irish Workers Group.

Wed 09, August 2006 @ 15:42

Irish republicanism at an impasse - 1993

It is twenty five years since the civil rights revolt gave birth to the modern IRA. Here, Matt Docherty assesses republicanism’s strategy for a united Ireland today in the light of the recent historic changes in world politics

Wed 09, August 2006 @ 15:40

'Left' republicanism in Ireland- 1989

Republicanism in Ireland is almost 200 years old. Taking its inspiration from the American Revolution (1776-82) and, more especially, the French Revolution (1789-94) republicanism emerged in Ireland as the doctrine of a developing northern protestant bourgeoisie in its fight against English rule.