Ireland

Part of a series of articles on Connolly

What is to be the position of Labour in the first Irish Parliament? To judge by the written opinion of many of our friends we would be inclined to believe that the representation of Labour in that Parliament would be a certainty, and that it would not be a mere nominal representation, but rather on a large, and as one writer has said, a dominating scale. If this were so, then we might truly felicitate the Labour movement in Ireland upon its marvellous progress, and felicitate the Irish working class upon the keenness of their insight and the alertness of their intelligence. Writing as one who...

James Joyce’s semi-autobiographical A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man , published in 1916 and adapted for the screen by Joseph Strick in 1977, depicts the coming of age of Stephen Dedalus (Joyce) played by Luke Johnston (when Stephen was ten) and by Bosco Hogan (later in life). Irish actor T. P. McKenna plays Simon Dedalus, Stephen’s father. He features in one of the most memorable moments in the film: a dinner-table confrontation between Simon and Dante, Stephen’s governess. Simon laments that the Irish “are a priest-ridden race”. Dante angrily responds: “If we are a priest-ridden race...

Kieran Allen’s latest book, 32 Counties: The Failure of Partition and the Case for a United Ireland , is a valuable polemical addition to the debates surrounding Ireland, Brexit, the prospect of a “Border Poll”, and Irish unification. It is most useful as a crisp historical account of partition and its political effects but less convincing as a justification for Allen’s current political perspectives. Allen is a leading figure in the Socialist Workers Network (SWN), the largest component of People Before Profit (PBP). The PBP coalition has elected representatives in the Dail, Stormont and...

Since 2 February the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) has appeared to step up its efforts to end the Northern Ireland Protocol, the part of the Brexit deal which requires checks on goods transported between Great Britain and the Six Counties. First Edwin Poots, DUP Health Minister of Northern Ireland, instructed officials in his department to stop carrying out these checks. On 3 February, DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson announced that the DUP First Minister of Northern Ireland (NI), Paul Givan, would resign. Under the provisions of the Good Friday Agreement this means that the Deputy First...

The tragi-comedy that is the Democratic Unionist Party’s inability to deal with the consequences of Brexit continues. Last week they attempted to pull the plug on the Irish sea border checks that are required under the protocol negotiated by Johnson and Lord Frost (even though both of those now talk as though they had nothing to do with it). Then the DUP first minister Paul Givan resigned, leaving the province without a functioning government. This is the culmination of a series of disastrous misjudgements going back to the DUP’s original decision to jump on the Leave bandwagon in the...

On 2 February 1922, 100 years ago, Sylvia Beach put a few copies of a new book in her bookshop window in Paris. The book was Ulysses , written by an almost unknown Irishman, James Joyce. Book and author went on to great literary fame and controversy. It was only in 1967 that a film version, a low-budget one, was directed by Joseph Strick. Like the novel, the film follows one day (16 June 1904, now “Bloomsday”) in the life of Leopold Bloom (Milo O’Shea), aimlessly wandering the streets of Dublin, although the film shows Dublin as it was in 1967. The film was almost as praised and condemned as...

The pamphlet which can be downloaded by clicking here is the immediate source for those writings of James Connolly on Ireland and partition available on the web and in subsequent printed collections. Some of the articles here are incomplete.

Unite members in the Regina Coeli hostel in Belfast, backed by members of the local Unite Jim Larkin Community branch, are continuing with their work-in despite having been suspended by management. The work-in began last week, as the latest stage in the campaign to save the hostel from closure. Regina Coeli House is owned by the Legion of Mary, which has decided to sell the property. In early January staff were told that they were being made redundant and that residents would be transferred to other hostels. The hostel is the only facility in Northern Ireland which provides women-only...

Speculation is mounting that the UK, as part of its ongoing wrangle with the EU, may trigger Article 16 of the Northern Ireland Protocol, plunging its whole Brexit agreement into doubt. The Northern Ireland Protocol was agreed in October 2019 and signed in December 2020 as a means of avoiding a hard border on the island of Ireland. Instead, Northern Ireland would, in effect, remain part of the EU’s Single Market for goods. Checks would take place between Northern Ireland and Great Britain — creating an Irish Sea border. Despite initially agreeing to this, Unionists and the Tories are now...