This session of the 2012 Dublin Anarchist Bookfair looked at the value of paper and ink when the net is usually declared the real frontier. We asked our panel to track some of the connections between todays underground radical press, and what went before.

On Saturday the 28th of April, hundreds are expected to gather for Reclaim the Streets. People will be meeting at the Spire on O’Connell Street at 2pm, and the exact location of the event will only be disclosed on the day itself.

A soundsystem, DJs, face-painters and dancers will congregate to turn a small section of Dublin’s city centre into a carnival of hope and creativity. Donal Corcoran, one of the event coordinators comments “There hasn’t been a Reclaim the Streets party in almost a decade and it’s time that changed. This is about reclaiming public space and creating a positive atmosphere and a hub of entertainment for a few hours”.

In the last few years, headlines have been filled with news of online attacks carried out against government and corporate websites claimed by groups calling themselves, among others, “Anonymous” and “Lulzsec”. Hacktivism is now so popular that a documentary will soon be released covering the Anonymous movement and others called “We Are Legion: The story of the Hacktivists”

Political poet Catherine Brogan returned home last Friday night to a successful event hosted by Occupy Belfast. Local poets, artists and singers performed at the free event in the ‘people bank’ to a receptive and enthusiastic audience eager to listen to poetry with a political message.

On Saturday the 4th of February, there is a protest against SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement) legislation being implemented. People will meet at 1:00pm at the Gardens of Remembrance, Parnell Square, Dublin.

Irish opposition politicians have called foul over Taoiseach Enda Kenny’s statement at Davos that the blame for the crisis in Ireland is that “people went mad borrowing” a month after he told the Irish people that “you are not to blame” in a national broadcast. But their are far more interesting issues that explain why the same man can make both statements without being aware of a contradiction than simple two-facedness.

Armoured cars and tanks and guns did not come to take away their sons, but the peoples of Greece and Italy last week found that their elected governments had been replaced overnight by a new postmodern dictatorship of ECB-appointed "technocrat" Viceroys. Clearly in the new Eurozone, the old liberal dogma that modern capitalism and liberal democracy are joined at the hip, has turned out to be just another fairy story.

For the first time in Greece a documentary produced by the audience. Debtocracy seeks the causes of the debt crisis and proposes solutions, hidden by the government and the dominant media.

On August 23rd Solidarity Books on Douglas St., Cork will host a booklaunch for the new book by Tommy McKearney, ”The Provisional IRA from Insurrection to Parliament.” Tommy McKearney was a senior member of the Provisional IRA from the early 1970s until his arrest in 1977. Sentenced to life imprisonment, he served 16 years during which time he participated in the 1980 hunger strike in the Maze. He is now a freelance journalist and an organizer with the Independent Workers Union.

Life is not easy in Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia for young Miloš, between seductresses and...

Closely Watched Trains,
Czechoslovakia (1966) 92 mins
directed by Jiří Menzel

"one of the pinnacles of the Czech New Wave of the 60s" The Guardian

"earthy humor...wonderfully sly...charming and poignant comprehension of the psychology of sex" N.Y. Times

Sunday July 17th 8 pm at Solidarity Books 43 Douglas Street http://solidaritybooks.org admission free, donations appreciated