Over 30 years of anarchist writing from Ireland listed under hundreds of topics
Self organising and the city - Squatting panel at Dublin Anarchist Bookfair 2015 video & audio
Date: Mon, 2015-05-18 15:56
What are the challenges and possibilities of popular self-organisation to reclaim our lives, our homes and our cities.
At this years Dublin anarchist bookfair Jenny and Zoe looked at recent occupations in Dublin, including the Grangegorman Squat in Smithfield where resistance to eviction is ongoing
Voting for Marriage Equality While Being Critical of Marriage - DABF 21015 Panel Video & audio
Date: Mon, 2015-05-18 15:07
We find ourselves in Ireland facing a imminent referendum on marriage equality, which the hardline religious right are opposing as part of their program of maintaining multiple oppressions.
A No vote in that context would be disastrous, serving only to entrench homophobia. Therefore anarchists are campaigning for a Yes to Marriage Equality vote but beyond the need to ensure the referendum is not defeated this session of the 2015 Dublin Anarchist Bookfair asked what else needed to be said?
How Nuclear Power was Defeated in Ireland - Video from DABF 2015
Date: Fri, 2015-05-15 16:38
Alan MacSimoin explains the successful campaign of the 1970's that stopped nuclear power coming to Ireland
Defending the Amazon, Defending Life Video & Audio from the Dublin Anarchist Bookfair
Date: Fri, 2015-05-15 10:20
You can now view the video of the Defending the Amazon defending life from the Dublin Anarchist Bookfair
The Rojava Revolution, Gender Liberation & Feudalism Video & Audio from DABF 2015
Date: Wed, 2015-05-13 16:02
This session at the 2015 Dublin anarchist bookfair examined the reasons why gender liberation is central to the Rojava revolution in northern Syria and looks in particular at the importance of the struggle against tribal feudalism.
The Housing Crisis is Really a Capitalist Crisis - Resist, Repopulate, Reclaim!
Date: Sun, 2015-05-10 15:50
“Ours is a society in which, in every field, one group of people makes decisions, exercise control, limits choices, while the great majority have to accept these decisions, submit to this control and act within the limits of these externally imposed choices. Nowhere is this more evident than in the field of housing: one of those basic human needs which throughout history and all over the world people have satisfied as well as they could for themselves, using the materials what were at hand and their own, and their neighbors labor. The marvelously resourceful anonymous vernacular architecture of every part of the globe is a testimony to their skill, using timber, straw, grass, leaves, hides, stone, clay, bone, earth, mud sand even snow. Consider the igloo: maximum enclosure of space with minimum of labor. Cost of materials and transportation, nil. And all made of water. Nowadays, of course, the Eskimos live on welfare handouts in little northern slums. Man, as Habraken says “no longer houses himself: he is housed” – Colin Ward
Decency for Dunnes Workers March in Newbridge, Kildare - Report
Date: Sat, 2015-05-09 17:00
Over 100 people, mainly Dunnes workers, marched from the town hall to Dunnes Stores in Newbridge, Co. Kildare on Thursday evening as part of the Decency for Dunnes Workers campaign which focuses on decent hours and earnings, job security, fair pay and representation and right to dignity at work. Marchers included members of the Scrap Water Charges Kildare group as well as a small, smartly dressed doggy. Mandate representatives and numerous local supporters were in attendance.
Striking Bus Drivers or Climate Warriors? Notes on Ireland’s Eco-Transport Struggles
Date: Thu, 2015-05-07 22:18
Could climate change become a catalysing force for radical social transformation in Ireland? Recent struggles around public transport in Ireland prompted me to think along these lines. Last weekend, Dublin Bus and Bus Éireann workers went on strike over plans by the National Transport Authority to tender out 10% of public routes to private operators. A few days earlier, SIPTU’s banner at Liberty Hall had been unfurled to state: ‘Say No to Privatisation; privatisation results in fare increase, reduced services, a threat to free travel, a bad deal for taxpayers and job cuts’. SIPTU and NBRU members and strike organisers have emphasised the damage privatisation will do to society, primarily concentrating on the loss of community services and the race to the bottom in bus drivers’ terms and conditions [1]. The striking workers deserve our support and their claims should be taken seriously. This is definitely the case when the regime media adhere to a deeply unimaginative line, loudly declaiming traffic disruption to an imagined city of angry consumers and silently accepting the hollowing out of public services [2]. At the same time, however, we also need to think about what’s not being said, about the words that don’t make it on to the papers or the banner.
Belfast Solidarity Demonstration for Baltimore - No Justice, No Peace
Date: Wed, 2015-05-06 13:00
On May 5th the Belfast branch of the Workers Solidarity Movement organised a demo and protest in solidarity with Baltimore.
We arranged candles in a circle with flowers in the middle as a vigil to those who have been murdered as a result of police and state-sponsored violence and racism. We then played interviews from Baltimore and Black America out on a speaker in order to allow those directly affected to speak for themselves.
Every 28 hours a person of colour (POC) is murdered by the police force in America. So far 157 known POC have been murdered - we printed out their names to show that they are not just numbers or statistics. Instead of reporting this the media and those with privilege have decided that it is much more important to talk about looting. This is the narrative in a neo-liberal, racist, society that places profit over the lives of people. In a society that is founded upon violence to act violently is to act in self-defence. Freddie Gray didn’t have the opportunity to act in self-defence against the torture he endured which eventually killed him.
Brigadistas in Paradise - The Green Brigade and left wing football fan culture
Date: Sat, 2015-05-02 16:13
The following is an abridged summary of a qualitative study undertaken as part of the Masters in Community Education, Equality and Social Activism at the National University of Ireland Maynooth. The thesis drew upon theories of culture, subculture, social movements, radical pedagogy, ethnographies and studies of ultras, gender and football research, as well as studies of the Irish immigrant experience in Scotland, and specifically the role of Celtic FC as an expression of Irish identity.
The Green Brigade of Glasgow Celtic Football Club were founded in 2006 as an explicitly anti-sectarian, anti-racist and anti-fascist group of ultras, who would celebrate Irish Republicanism, oppose the commercialisation of football, and act as an alternative to apolitical fans groups who were perceived as being too close to the management of the club.