Over 30 years of anarchist writing from Ireland listed under hundreds of topics
Newstalk is finally leading on the story of the 796 children buried in a sceptic tank in a religious home in Tuam - it has yet to appear in the RTE website. It's over a week and RTE has yet to 'realise' this is a major story. A clear indication that we are not dealing simply with uncovering a grim story from the distant past but with the way power continues to be exercised between Church, State & Media in our collective present.
"In the space of 2 weeks a group of EL (English language) teachers joined a trade union, won our pay dispute with the multi-national we work for, and started planning to unionise the EL sector and campaign against zero hours contracts." - We are delighted to bring you this account from Aideen Elliott of her and her colleagues' recent victory against proposed wage cuts at EF Language School in Dublin.
The recent racist attacks in Northern Ireland against migrant workers are an indictment of the Stormont status-quo which thrives on blaming minorities for the problems inherent in capitalism. It is the political class and sections of the tabloid press who constantly provide the ammunition for racist attacks.
Almost a century ago, "800 years of oppression" at the hands of the Anglo-Normans and the British monarchy came to an end on three quarters of the island, but it wasn't the end of oppression in Ireland. The baton was eagerly taken by the Catholic Church and the southern Irish state, and in eight years they will be celebrating one hundred years of kidnap, torture, murder and sexual abuse. (content warning: Mentions sexual abuse, child abuse, kidnapping, neglect)
The mass grave in Tuam isn't simply a story of a handful of evil nuns acting out of sight and discovered 80 years too late. It's the story of the long and protracted relationship between the Irish state and the Catholic church as illustrated by these two photos from the 1930s and 1950s.
The first is one of many scenes from the 1932 Eucharistic Congress, a few short years after the Tuam home went into operation. The congress saw the Irish state lay on an enormous pageant to cement its relationship with the church as part of the process of recasting its control over the population through the promotion of a regressive religious ideology that marginalised independent women, queers and anyone else who didn't toe the line.
Paris Bakery workers ended their sit-in on its 19th day following official confirmation from Revenue that the company will be wound up. This means that the workers can be paid through accessing the Insolvency Fund. The law must be changed to ensure no other group of workers have to go through this to get paid the money they are owed. It's up to all of us through our unions to keep the pressure on for legislative change.
Almost two years after Shell smuggled their Tunnel Boring Machine out of Dublin port in the middle of the night, and then spent 3 days meeting resistance across the country before getting stuck in the bog, they removed it from Erris Monday night.
Tuesday night the government published the overdue Cooke Report into the GSOC bugging controversy. Retired High Court Judge John Cooke, no stranger to controversy himself (link: see comments) was appointed by Enda Kenny to establish whether the offices of GSOC were bugged.
Wednesday morning Frances Fitzgerald, Minister for Justice and Equality and replacement for Alan Shatter after he was forced to resign, is lauding the report as an exoneration of the Gardaí. The 64-page report claims that “evidence does not support the proposition that actual surveillance…took place and much less that it was carried out by members of the Garda Síochána.” Yet there are a number of revelations in the report that raise serious questions as to its ability to speak to the bugging issue in a definitive manner.
It does not prove difficult to persuade an anarchist to go to a meeting with the subtitle ‘ Anarchy and Buen Vivir (Good living)’ and more especially when the speaker, Gustavo Esteva, has direct links with the Zapatista Army for National Liberation (EZLN) who inspired the world with their uprising in 1994.
Gustavo was invited to speak by the Kimmage Development Studies Centre (DSC) as part of their 40th year celebrations. Gustavo addressed the gathering in the parish hall and started with the position that Development was counterproductive. Considering this was the Kimmage DSC’s raison d'être is to facilitate education and training for development practitioners, this was a sharp starting point.