Archive for the ‘Socialist Party’ Category
“Be Patient and Never Give up the Struggle” An interview with Tommy McKearney
International Viewpoint has published a stimulating interview with Tommy McKearney,
http://www.tommymckearney.com/Site/Blog/Blog.html
Tommy McKearney - A Patient Revolutionary Socialist
We hope soon to carry a review of Tommy’s recently published book
Goodbye Armalite, Hello Ballot Box?
Tommy welcomes the United Left Alliance Project :
Q: In late 2010 the United Left Alliance came together to contest the February 2011 general elections in Ireland, winning five seats. What is you assessment of the ULA?
TM: The ULA is a positive and progressive development. The fact that organizations of the left have come together at any time is good and that these groups are doing so at this time of capitalist crisis is heartening and encouraging. The ULA has also given some needed visibility to the left through its articulate and high-profile spokespersons such as Richard Boyd Barrett and Joe Higgins.
Asked about Ed Moloney’s “Voices From the Grave” and the British state attack on the Boston College Belfast Project, Tommy says : Read the rest of this entry »
The Ghost of Captain Boycott and the Ladies’ Land League Stalks the Kenny-Gilmore Household Tax
The Dublin North TD Clare Daly (Socialist Party, United Left Alliance) has written a thoughtful article on the Household Tax
http://www.thejournal.ie/readme/column-why-the-household-charge-is-a-gateway-tax/
which we have reproduced in full below.
In a previous article on this site
some recommended reading gives us a flavour of Irish Resistance in Mayo during the Nineteenth Century.
A question was asked
Is “Enda Kenny, the Mayo Deputy, the New Captain Boycott?”
Women organised independently through the Ladies’ Land League, which was more radical than than its male equivalent – Anna Parnell was among its leaders :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Catherine_Parnell
Offices were given to the ladies but little help. The women held public meetings and encouraged country women to be active in withholding rent, in boycotting and in resisting evictions. They raised funds for the League and for the support of prisoners and their families. They distributed Land League wooden huts to shelter evicted tenant families and by the beginning of 1882 they had 500 branches, thousands of women members and considerable publicity.
Read the rest of this entry »
United Left Alliance TD’s, part of the Dáil Technical Group – Irish Times Review
For a change, the Irish Times report is fair to the left-wing outsiders.
Debate occurred on this site after the February 25 2011 General Election on whether Luke “Ming” Flanagan could be grouped within the left – we presume that argument is over now. Ming has sided with the United Left Alliance comrades on a variety of key issues since his election in Roscommon-South Leitrim – is the west awake for the left?
The article is discussed on the Cedar Lounge Revolution Site :
http://cedarlounge.wordpress.com/2012/01/12/speaking-about-the-independents-of-the-left/
Ming Flanagan gets this mention: we are told the Independent TD for Roscommon-South Leitrim who has in the past proudly advertised his fondness for the odd cannabis joint
orbits in this area, but is less clearly explicitly left-wing and therefore perhaps more sensibly regarded as being a sometime fellow traveller on some but not all issues.
Tomás Ó Flatharta 