In the run up to our 21st birthday celebrations, Anti-Fascist Action Ireland are undertaking a major historical survey of the Irish Far-Right from 1945 – 1991. ... read full story / add a comment

Eoghan Harris regularly rants about terrorism both real and imaginary. While he still checks under his bed for Trots his main fear is that we are in a Weimar Republic stage and Sinn Fein are on the verge of seizing power. He fails to notice that his beloved Blueshirts are the one party in Ireland with a Fascist past. ... read full story / add a comment

On the 15th October 2011 the Ireland Institute on Pearse Street played host to the second annual Raymond Crotty lecture, which was sponsored by the People’s Movement. The topic of this year’s lecture was Rancher and Banking interests in the modern Irish Economy and was delivered by Conor McCabe. McCabe’s recent book, Sins of the Father, is an examination of the Irish economy from the Anglo – Irish Treaty up to the present day. http://www.theirishstory.com/2011/10/21/review-conor-mc...ITBIH ... read full story / add a comment

Two previous articles, 'Of Cups, Rings and Cultural Heritage' & 'Cultural Heritage and the Economy'  (Indymedia, August 1, 2011) dealt with recent research on the Hill of Tara and Bend in the Boyne that could open a new chapter in their history, as well as that of hundreds of additional archaeological sites throughout Ireland, the UK and other Atlantic/Mediterranean European countries.  More importantly, they discussed the apathy on the part of the politicians, government agencies and archaeologists in Ireland towards that research, and its potential cultural and economic benefits.  In all fairness though to the aforementioned, what of the European Union and UNESCO World Heritage Centre, who are just as responsible for protecting the cultural heritage and economies of countries within the Euro Zone. ... read full story / add a comment

Considering the dismal economic state of a growing number of EU nations, it is more important than ever for them to protect their cultural heritage, as it is firmly linked to their economies in the form of tourism.  Though one tends to think of cultural heritage as something taught in schools and preserved in museums, it goes well beyond that, as evidenced by the attraction of archaeological and cultural World Heritage Sites to millions around the world. Though sites such as the Bend in the Boyne and Stonehenge play a significant role in our understanding of who we are and where we came from, every site, however small, is just as important, and they deserve to be indentified, excavated, restored and preserved for future generations. ... read full story / add a comment

The following is the first of three articles regarding cultural heritage and its potential benefits to the economies of Ireland, England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and other Atlantic/Mediterranean European countries, which given the ever growing number of EU nations seeking bailouts, canʼt be ignored any longer. There are those whoʼve questioned why the cultural heritage of Ireland for example, is of such importance to someone who is a 4th generation Irish-American. The bigger question is why those whoʼve been ʻchargedʼ with protecting the cultural heritage of a nation; the archaeologists, politicians, government agencies, EU and UNESCO, have turned a blind eye to the issue. ... read full story / add a comment

AN IMPORTANT BOOK

This is an important book on Irish republican and leftwing politics in the 1960s, on the background to the destruction of Ulster Unionist political hegemony by the Northern civil rights movement of that decade, and the formation of the Provisional IRA.

Dr Treacy gives us much new information on a relatively neglected period. His book will be a significant source for those seeking to understand the explosion caused by the Partition of Ireland half a century after David Lloyd George’s Government of Ireland Act sundered Ireland into two parts in 1920.

Unfortunately it will not be the definitive work on its subject. This is because Dr Treacy seems somewhat divided over what one might call “the conspiracy thesis” which has been subscribed to by sundry previous writers on this topic. This is that there was an attempt at some form of communist takeover-bid of the 1960s Republican Movement which contributed significantly to the 1970 split which gave rise to the Provisional IRA. ... read full story / add a comment

A Chairde,

Over Easter, influential members of Sinn Fein were pretty vocal in assasinating the integrity of so-called Dissident Republican Groups. As such, I felt the need to respond.
... read full story / add a comment

Gael-Taca: www.gael-taca.com
Forbairt Feirste: www.forbairtfeirste.com
Gaillimh Le Gaeilge: www.gleg.ie ... read full story / add a comment

Today the Venezuelan state continued its riveting bicentinial celebrations of its war for independence from the Spanish empire led by the "liberator" Simon Bolivar by exhuming his remains in what has been officially termed a respectful and patriotic operation supervised by Venezuelan flags, Venezuelan military and no less than 50 Venezuelan scientific experts in forensic anthropology, archaeological preservation & such like if not so.

Even though dental records did not exist a little less than 200 years ago, there has been little doubt that the reliquary opened, so that it may be "preserved for posterity" in the words of state minister for Justice, Tarek El Aissami, did indeed hold the remains of Bolivar. ... read full story / add a comment

Connor Kostick author of Revolution in Ireland: Popular militancy 1917 to 1923 spoke at the 2010 Dublin anarchist bookfair about the wave of workplace occupations and 'soviets' as well as the general strikes that are forgotten by conventional nationalist histories of this period. ... read full story / add a comment

A brief look at Irelands lost history of genocide and slave trading. A call to re-engage the spirit of revolution that burns deep in the contemporary Irish psyche and use this common heritage to take serious consideration of once again uniting the Island of Ireland. Peace and unity within the borders of our own land. ... read full story / add a comment

Every secret of art, every subtlety of knowledge, and every diligence of healing that exists, from the Tuatha De Danann had their origin. And although the Faith came, these arts were not driven out, for they are good.(1) ... read full story / add a comment

Book Review - England's Greatest Spy. Eamon De Valera by John J. Turi ... read full story / add a comment

The Mound of the Hostages... ... read full story / add a comment

As I write thousands of people, the vast ,majority of them Irish are assembling at the largest public worship building on this island in eager expectation of a Marian apparition. The Roman Catholic church runs Knock and played a vital role in the building of the basilica, local economy, airport & marian cult.

Mary is thought by Catholics to have made her first apparition within a generation of the death of Paul and the apostles on a column perhaps more apt for a sceptic philosopher in what is now the Aragonese city of Zaragossa. Since then she has been held to appear on a roughly bicentianeal basis throughout Europe with some notable gigs in Latin America, none in Africa or Asia.

This might tell us more about the kind of people who see, expect to see or have thought they have seen her than it would indicate any particular favouritism on her part. Each time she has appeared she has been reported as bringing news for the world, after all & not just the typically poor communities. ... read full story / add a comment

All good children are now washed and asleep in their cots and ought have little idea how their parents & elders intend to vote tomorrow in Ireland's 2nd referendum to ratify the Lisbon Treaty. Theirs is not the duty nor the concern to weigh local political and national debate with the long term consequences of a potential post-Lisbon European Union. For the most part they will have noticed the plethora of posters and the volume of bilge wash which the Irish voters have seen and been brought through since immediately after they voted No! in the first Lisbon referendum and which has continued unrelentlessly as a tsunami until this last evening of reflection.
... read full story / add a comment

Europeans were mostly responsible for the museum industry as much as the grand symphonic orchestras, opera and zoos. They used these things at first not out of any wish to educate nor illuminate in the laudable manner of contemporary interpretative centres but to solve three important 19th century bourgois problems.

1) how to gainfully employ people who really smellt bad but are now represented as Indiano Jones.
2) how to reclaim supposedly civilised history from the church of Rome.
3) how to offer vandals like Lord Elgin bequest options and subsequent relief from death taxes. ... read full story / add a comment

Is a decline in the glorification of Irish heroes and the use of the Irish languge just a fad or a worrying, long-term trend on the part of the Gaelic Athletic Association? The disappointing latter may well be true. ... read full story / add a comment

A cry for help by the Urban Explorers of Ireland ... read full story / add a comment