Today, members and supporters of Anti - Fascist action remodeled posters that were put around Dublin city centre, by a tiny far-right Autonomous Nationalist group, to mark the 30th anniversary of Bobby Sands' death. ... read full story / add a comment

Tonight, Thursday the Dundalk 2016 committee held a moving and extensive Easter commemoration within the wing of Dundalk prison.
The last time such an event was held within the walls was in 1928 when republican POWs and internerees were still being held captive before the Gaols final closure in 1931. ... read full story / add a comment

The weekend following the Charlie Donnelly commemoration in Tyrone a major Intenational event, commemorating the battle of Jarama, took place in Madrid. This event from the seeds sown by Bob Doyle Seve Montereo Harry Owens Anna Perez and the support of AABI has taken root and grown into the the largest annual International Brigade commemeoration on the calender ... read full story / add a comment

Bóthar na Saoirse (The Road to Freedom) is a trilogy of documentaries on the lives of Dan Breen, Tom Barry and Ernie O’Malley, iconic hardline republicans from the War of Independence.

It begins on Wednesday on TG4 with My Fight For Irish Freedom, Scéal Dan Breen, the colourful and complex South Tipperary guerrilla who started the War of Independence at Soloheadbeg in 1919 on the day the First Dail sat in Dublin. Forced to flee Tipperary he joined Michael Collins’ hit squad in Dublin but then opposed the Treaty negotiated by Collins. Later he joined De Valera’s Fianna Fail and was the first anti-Treaty activist to enter Dail Eireann and take the oath of allegiance he had fought to abolish. ... read full story / add a comment

News from the Basque Country ... read full story / add a comment

A 48-hour fast will be held shortly by Republican POW's in Portlaoise Prison in support of their comrades in Maghaberry Prison. ... read full story / add a comment

Remembering ... read full story / add a comment

A New Independent Irish History Podcast has risen to number 2 in Itunes podcast charts in less than a week to challenge Tommy Tiernan and Hector O hEochagain for the top spot. The podcast series aims to look back at the past 2000 years of Irish history and archaeology. The first show Barbarians looks at the what Ireland was like 2000 years ago, the coming of Christianity, Gaelic society and finishes up with a look at medieval attitudes to life and death. ... read full story / add a comment

In an old schoolhouse in north Donegal people gather to grant St Brigid permission to cross the threshold. She carries an armful of freshly cut rushes with a white cloth tied around them. They are laid on a long set of tables, and slowly men, women and children go up gather some rushes up to make the traditional St Brigid's crosses. ... read full story / add a comment

A campaign to save Brú na Bóinne from the Slane Bypass has been launched online over the weekend. It is being initiated by members of the National Monuments Forum, which includes Professor George Eogan, Professor Emeritus of Archaeology at University College Dublin. The National Roads Authority has chosen the most damaging route for archaeology and heritage, and Meath County Council has gone ahead and issued CPO orders for the route, without even waiting for the An Bord Pleanala oral hearing. A petition will be launched shortly, calling on Minister Gormley to deliver on his promise of a new National Monuments Act, and calling on UNESCO to place
Brú na Bóinne on their List of World Heritage in Danger. ... read full story / add a comment

The French chattering classes are reacting to the news that Sarkozy wishes to move the body of Albert Camus from his grave in Lourmarin in southern France where he was buried after the car crash which killed the then recently Nobel Laureated writer and his publisher to the Pantheon in Paris where France has collected over 70 "illustrious dead men" and one "radioactive woman". Camus will be the second individual claimed by anarchism to be given a place in the Pantheon following the pacifist and anarchosyndicalist opposer to WW1, Jean Jaures moved there in 1924). Camus would be the first Pantheon resident to have been born in Algeria. His kids don't want him moved at all. However, I see in this a consistent concern I have articulated over the years at how contemporary regimes and society abuse the memory of the dead and use their legacy :-
.:.The Selective & Collective memory : Memory as fetishised community : Communality as fetishised memorial.:. ... read full story / add a comment

In the late 1970s and early 80s Dublin was a city spinning out of control due to the first devastating epidemic of heroin addiction. Inner city communities were under siege as drug users converged from all over to buy drugs in their flat complexes. By early 1983 hundreds had died as a result of drug related problems. Ordinary citizens mobilised and took to the streets in an attempt to stop the sale and distribution of drugs which were killing their families, friends and neighbours. ... read full story / add a comment

For years now, we have been reading about plans for the Leinster Orbital Route (LOR) or Dublin Outer Orbital Route (DOOR). Earlier this year, the NRA published a Feasibility Report from 2007, which shows route of the LOR passing along the side of the Hill of Tara. Notably, the route goes about 1km north of the Blundelstown Interchange, between the N3 and M3 motorway. However, last week Meath County Councillors were told to freeze planning on a 2km corridor on either side of the route. So, it is possible the route will pass directly through the Blundelstown Interchange, the Hill of Tara complex and the proposed UNESCO World Heritage Site. In fact, it appears that this was the plan all along, and that the route has been chosen before the public consultation even begins. ... read full story / add a comment

Between defending Junket John O’Donoghue and propping up the sales of Bertie Ahern’s biography, Eoghan Harris, has taken time out to fall out with his old UCC history professor, John A Murphy.

What is the spat about?

Eoghan thinks that 140,000, 60,000 or 40,000 Protestants (take your pick) were driven out of Ireland during or after the War of Independence. John A thinks it a fine old theory, but devoid of evidence, essentially codswallop. It is a view Eoghan has been peddling without fear of contradiction in the Sunday Independent, which is presumably why John A has tackled the appointed (by Bertie) Senator in the Irish Times. There, Murphy can get the former Karl Marxist and Rupert Murdochite, now Tony O’Reillyist, on a more even scribbling field.
... read full story / add a comment

The Irish Times reported on Friday, August 28 2009 that a 9,000 year old fishing trap was found in the Hill of Tara landscape at Clowanstown, near Dunsany, during excavations by the National Roads Authority (NRA), along the path of the M3 motorway. Settlement remains of agricultural, industrial and ritual nature were discovered amongst five man-made mounds, beside an ancient lake. Stone axes, jewellery and even a tiny wooden canoe were unearthed. The finds show once again that the Tara landscape masks an underground world of Irish pre-history, which should have been either left alone, or excavated as part of a proper research study, rather than as part of an archaeological salvage operation. ... read full story / add a comment

The US National Security Archive has in the last hours presented unto us its National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 282.”. There is both tension & worry in the two South American states with the largest and best equipped military forces, Chile & Brazil at the decision of Colombia to host 7 US bases as reaction to the decision by Ecuador not to renew the US lease on its “Manta base.
In the last week the 6th democratically elected president of Brazil, Lula called for a meeting with Obama to discuss the US bases and said "the climate of unease disturbs me". Indeed the Brazilian government had already refused US overtones to use its base at Recife. I really think a considered glimpse at these new declassified files might be of interest to readers As such this article on the 6th Brazilian military dictatorship figurehead and Nixon follows my text yesterday entitled “The new Latin American century, FARC, arms races, US bases & sundry fibs”. ... read full story / add a comment

Ógra Shinn Féin Dublin has condemned the attack on a statue commemorating Irish Patriot Seán Russell.

Unknown individuals painted Nazi flags on the base of the monument late on Tuesday night/Wednesday morning and also poured red paint over it.

The new bronze memorial to Seán Russell,a veteran of the Easter Rising and IRA chief of staff during the bombing campaign launched in London in 1939, stands in Fairview Park in Dublin and was only recently unveiled by the National Graves Association following the destruction of a previous memorial by vandals in 2004.
... read full story / add a comment

We announce the Launch of a campaign of opposition to the so called "Riveria" apartments close to seaside area in Bray. We intend to maximise the number of objections against any development proposals and build a grassroots movement based on "people power". We are also opposed to further slot machines in the area which may lead to serious addiction problems and can be a source of trouble within families. We will strongly oppose any plans for development in the one scenic area of Bray left. Instead our campaign believes investment should be concentrated in the town centre. Some of our other aims include campaigning for the re-instatement of the Blue Flag for our Beach which we had in 1991. We also demand greater transparency and accountability in the planning process. ... read full story / add a comment

A delegation of approximately 30 TaraWatch members met with Opposition TDs and Senators at the Kildare Street gates of the Dail on Wednesday, at 1.00 pm. ... read full story / add a comment

Photo Essay April 09 ... read full story / add a comment