Workers Solidarity Movement

In 2007/8 WSM member Andrew Flood spent a total of 16 weeks touring North American and Canada, giving talks in 44 cities. The topic was 'Building a popular anarchism in Ireland' which involved a history of anarchist involvement in struggle from around 1997 to 2007. This video is formed from the audio of the talk and images of the anarchist movement in Ireland from the mid 1990's to the present day.

Andrew says of this video on his blog that:

The period from 1997 to 2007 saw anarchism in Ireland move from an ultra marginal role to just a marginal one, a similar level of significance to the rest of the far left. This video is a brief history of anarchism during that decade and why there was a massive growth in terms of percentages if rather modest in terms of actual numbers. It includes anarchist involvement in pro-choice, community, anti-war, work place struggles, reclaim the streets and of course the EU summit protests of Mayday 2004.

A little over 12 months ago NEFAC announced the second leg of my North American speaking tour on indymedia. The audio with this video is actually a recording of the meeting I gave at the 'Finding our Roots' conference in Chicago in April 2008 which used more or less the same text as I used for all 43 other stops on the tour. ( Full list ) (View the video at full size)

The images include those used during the talk itself with the addition of many other images of struggle from that decade, mostly from my own collection and during the initial period of questions after the talk a collection of photos I took during the talk. The last sequence are taken in Ireland over the last 8 or so months and emphasise's that the movement has continued to grow and develop.

Something of a disclaimer: Trying to compress a history of anarchist involvement in that decade into a 40 minute presentation to an audience many of whom know nothing about Ireland was something of a challenge. So I'll say in advance that I had to over simplify aspects of the struggles I talk about and that I focus pretty much exclusively on the anarchist involvement in these struggles.

I'd left Ireland in May 2007 so my analysis of the situation runs up to that date, its particularly obvious in the case of the Rossport struggle that much has changed since. At the time of the talk Bertie had just resigned and the crash had not yet come into view, a lot has changed even in the year since that presentation.

The video is almost an hour and 10 minutes in length. You can comment on it or View the video at full size