20 years ago this month details emerged of the X-case, when the Irish state injuncted a pregnant 14 year old who had been raped to prevent her traveling of England for an abortion. The x-case was the culmination of a decade of fundamentalist anti-choice hysteria that had flowed from the 1983 referendum designed to make it impossible to ever legalize abortion again in Ireland.
(Pic: Press launch – taken by RAG)
Dublin last weekend saw about 400 people take part in a demonstration against the intention of Seán Sherlock, the Labour Party Minister for Research and Innovation to bring into law a requirement for Irish internet service providers to block access to sites that allow the downloading of copy righted material. This is a similar law to the SOPA and ACTA laws that Hollywood & music industry lobbyists tried unsuccessfully to force through the US Congress. A second demonstration is to take place this Saturday.
This is an introduction to Proudhon’s economic ideas and their influence on revolutionary anarchism. It is a chapter from the new book The Accumulation of Freedom: Writings on Anarchist Economics (AK Press [US/UK], 2012) and its blurb (in part) states: “The only crisis of capitalism is capitalism itself…
Over 100 people took part in a picket at City Hall in Dublin last night to protest the Household tax. The protest was timed to coincide with a motion opposing the household tax proposed by Cllrs Louise Minihan, Cieran Perry, Pat Dunne and Brid Smith.
On Saturday 28th January Unlock NAMA opened an occupied building in the center of Dublin for a day of lectures about NAMA, Ireland’s ‘Bad Bank.’ The event was cut short by a large number of police who turned up and ordered them out of the building. In this 40 minute interview Andrew Flood interviews Cat & Moira from Unlock NAMA about the occupation, what NAMA is and what Unlock NAMA demands.
Image: All rights reserved by Paul C Reynolds – used with permission
On the 30th January 1972 British soldiers opened fire on protesters in the city of Derry, north-west Ireland. Twenty six unarmed protesters were shot, 13 died immediately or within hours, one more died just over four months later. Derry was in the section of Ireland claimed by the British state and the shootings happened in the context of the suppression of a growing civil rights movement demanding equality for Catholics in the 6 of Ulster’s counties claimed by Britain.
The idea that calling for a referendum is a good strategy for winning significant reforms often crops up in campaigns. It seems logical, as a referendum is a chance for the population to directly make a decision on the issue to hand. But the reality is that the demand for a referendum is seldom, if ever, the best way to build a struggle for a reform. Here are five reasons why:
The revolutionary union the Industrial Workers of the World marked its 100th anniversary in 2005. To mark this event a conference was held at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, hosted by the editors (Fred Lee and Jon Bekken) of this useful selection of talks from it. As well as an introduction, this book has ten chapters on a wide range of subjects on something often not much discussed in radical circles, political economy.
Singer songwriter Christy Moore dropped into Occupy Dame Street in Dublin last night to sing and send grettings to all the Occupy camps in the major cities of Ireland, at Cork, Limerick, Belfast, Waterford, Kerry, Athlone, Galway and the over 2000 Occupy camps world wide. In the video Christy refers to being in the ‘Yellow Submarine,’ thats the wooden structure built to serve as a kitchen for a camp that is waterproofed with heavy yellow plastic. Christy then sings ‘Ride On’ before heading off into the night to the applause of the assembled campers.
(Pic: a still from Dave’s video of
Christy Moore at Occupy Dame Street)
Station’s crime correspondent Paul Reynolds falsely reported that recording of Garda rape conversation was ‘tampered with’
Shell to Sea has revealed that RTÉ is being compelled to broadcast an apology ahead of Wednesday’s Six-One and Nine O’Clock TV news programmes, as a result of RTÉ’s biased coverage of Shell’s attempt to build an experimental gas pipeline and refinery in Erris. In this specific case, RTÉ chose to ignore the facts as explained to them by Shell to Sea around technical issues concerning the Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission (GSOC) investigation into the conversation Garda had about threatening to rape two women Shell to Sea campaigners they had arrested in April this year. RTÉ instead reported as fact the false suggestions of Justice Minister Alan Shatter, that part of the recording of the arrest had been deleted.