Category: News & Analysis
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Plugging leaks – Ireland’s crumbling water infrastructure
With long, warm summers set to become the norm for Europe, the crisis of Ireland’s water infrastructure is reaching boiling point. At the end of July, a nationwide hosepipe ban was brought in and has been extended until the end of September across half the state. Uisce Éireann (UÉ) have justified the ban based on…
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The ghosts of Drumcree
On the morning of Sunday 27 September, it seemed the North stood on the brink of the abyss. As the Orange Order was gearing up for a march down the Garvaghy Road, loyalists gathered in Portadown city centre to welcome them. Thousands of residents from the mainly nationalist area, meanwhile, linked arms to blockade the…
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Stop the game! Fight Imperialism and its lackeys!
On 27 September, Ireland will play Israel over 2,500km away from Ireland in Hungary. On 4 October, Ireland’s ‘home’ leg shifted to a ‘neutral’ ground in Serbia. At both matches, no Irish supporter will be let through a turnstile. On the one hand the FAI insists its hands are tied by UEFA. On the other…
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Donald Trump’s contribution to the discussion on a United Ireland summed up
Donald Trump has some choice words on Irish unification when he took a detour from his golf trip last week to visit the Taoiseach. At their meeting he unexpectedly announced: “They’re Irish people. How can they be bad, right? I’d love to see it unified,” adding later that it would be “a very cool thing”.…
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Permission granted to cement over mother and baby home
Despite decades of promises and apologies, the church and state are attempting to pave over historic abuse on the site of the Bessborough Mother and Baby Home in Cork. At least 923 children died at Bessborough between the 1920s and 1990s. Infant mortality in the 1940s reached 82 percent. 859 of these dead children have…
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Donaldson’s fall and the DUP’s crisis
The unprecedented scandal surrounding former DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson, who has been convicted of 18 counts of sexual abuse against children – including one count of rape – has shaken the DUP to its very core. For the first time in five years, the latest opinion polls have failed to place the DUP as the…
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Picking the Triple Lock
The bill to scrap the Triple Lock – the mechanism which requires approval from the Irish government, Dáil, and United Nations Security Council before more than 12 Irish troops can be sent abroad – is set to come before the Dáil this Autumn. In particular the role of the UN Security Council is coming under…
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‘Russia will collapse tomorrow’ – ‘and invade Europe in five years’
‘Russia is about to collapse.’ The economy is apparently cracking at the seams. Sanctions have finally worked. Oil refineries are going up in flames one after another. Ukrainian drones have paralysed half the country. There is no petrol, no money, and soon there will be no soldiers left either. The regime is living out its…
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The Revolutionary Communist goes monthly!
“The publication of an all-Russia political newspaper must be the main line by which we may unswervingly develop, deepen and expand the organisation” – V.I Lenin It is only one year since we relaunched the Revolutionary Communist – the organ of the Revolutionary Communists of Ireland – as a bimonthly publication. And it was only…
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Opinion polls, ballot boxes and Sinn Féin
The latest LucidTalk poll has sent shockwaves through the political establishment in the North. The three parties that came out on top in the last Stormont elections are now all but bleeding support. Jeffrey Donaldson’s conviction for child rape and abuse has plunged the DUP into crisis. Alliance is now polling at its lowest in…