Ireland

Boris Johnson visited Northern Ireland on 16 May. He spoke out of both sides of his mouth, offering a conciliatory message that he does not wish to scrap the Northern Ireland Protocol, while at the same time signing off Foreign Secretary Liz Truss to prepare legislation unilaterally disapplying parts of the Protocol in UK domestic law The UK Government is, it seems, split on the issue. Truss, angling for the position as a future Tory leader, is signalling a “tough” approach in introducing the legislation. Other senior figures, such as Gove and Sunak, are concerned about the possible economic...

Some time ago I reprinted in Forward an extract from an article I had contributed to the Irish Review defending and expounding the idea of the sympathetic strike. That was at the beginning of the Dublin struggle. Now, the members of the Irish Transport and General Workers’ Union who have returned to work in Dublin have done so after signing an agreement to handle all classes of goods, that is to say, to renounce for the time the idea and practice of the sympathetic strike. This, by the way, is the only agreement yet signed by members of that union. In those firms which still insist upon the...

Sinn Fein’s first place in Northern Ireland’s 5 May election was almost inevitable once the DUP dispersed votes to other Unionist parties by backing Boris Johnson’s form of “hard Brexit” and then demanding the repeal of its unavoidable consequence, the Northern Ireland Protocol. The outcome refocuses the unviability of Northern Ireland as a democratic unit, and the case for a federal united Ireland as the only democratic way out. The immediate consequence is impasse. The DUP refuses to nominate a deputy First Minister to allow the power-sharing rule of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement to operate...

Part of a series of articles on Connolly here Introduction by Sean Matgamna The Dublin Labour War of 1913-14 is one of the great epics of working class struggle and endeavour. Officially, it lasted from August 1913 to mid-January 1914, but some of the lockouts dragged on beyond that date. It is well known throughout the world because Vladimir Lenin wrote about it. That was in the first week, and therefore, many of his judgements were not true for the strike-lockout as a whole. Nor were the locked-out workers innocents picked upon by the 400 Dublin employers who banded together to fight them...

This is the title of a pamphlet by Patrick J. Cooney of Bridgeport, Conn., which we would like to see in the hands of all our readers, and especially those who are struggling towards the light out of the economic darkness of today.

We gather from the American newspapers that our countrymen in the United States army and navy have been highly distinguishing themselves in the cause of the war with Spain. This is as it should be and in consonance with all our Irish traditions. We are a fighting race, we are told, and every Irishman is always proud to hear our politicians and journalists tell of our exploits in the fighting line — in other countries, in other climes and in other times. Yes, we are a fighting race. Whether it is under the Stars and Stripes or under the Union Jack; planting the flag of America over the walls of...

In mid-February, Paul Holmes, elected national president of Unison in June 2021, was re-elected as secretary of Kirklees local government branch. After the branch’s AGM in February, union officials said that the branch would be returning to normal functioning after two years under regional control while Holmes and other branch officers were suspended by the council. The council sacked Holmes on 2 February. He is appealing. Today, 28 March, we tried to contact the Kirklees branch office and got an answerphone message that the branch cannot respond to phone or email enquiries. Members wanting...

From The Irish Review, October 1913

This article from Forward , 10 May 1913, was reprinted in part in the 1975 pamphlet Ireland Upon the Dissecting Table , under the headline "Many-headed opposition". The part reprinted was the final few paragraphs, from "That our readers might understand the position..." During the past month the most outstanding features of the situation in the Labour movement here have been the signal advance made by the dock labourers on some of the cross-Channel steamers, the decision of the Recorder, Judge Craig, in an action by the relatives of a member against the Textile Operatives' Society of Ireland...

This article from Forward , 3 May 1913, was published in part - the last third or so, starting with "From time to time in these Notes..." - under the headline "Catholicism, Protestantism, and Politics" in the 1975 pamphlet "Ireland Upon the Dissecting Table". One of the earliest of the pioneers of the modern Socialist movement in Scotland — poor Bob Hutchinson — whose death was recorded in Forward some months ago, was wont to say on Glasgow Green when interrupted by some of the rival gangs of Irish disputants — "The Irish question, do you say! Why, we are all Irish, only some of you came here...