Workers Solidarity Movement

Anarchist newspaper published in 1980 by a collective in Dublin and Belfast. This issue is on the anti nuclear movement

“The Burning” – PDF here– is a full length play written about the circumstances surrounding the destruction Captain Jack White’s papers following his death in Broughshane, Co. Antrim in 1946. White, as many people will know, was one of the more well known figures in Irish history that identified with anarchism. The only son of British Boer War hero, Sir George Stuart White (“The Hero Of Ladysmith”), he was assured a bright future in the upper echelons of the British military until his conscience intervened and he resigned his commission.

The nurses’ work-to-rule and their threat to escalate the action next week has been met with an outraged onslaught by Mary Harney and Bertie Ahern. The sight of a group of workers standing up and demanding their rights has become so unusual that it seems as if the government cannot believe the temerity of the nurses in doing just that.

A member of the Iranian Kurdish opposition is on hunger strike in a Dublin hostel to protest at being refused asylum in Ireland. On March 21st members of the Workers Solidarity Movement joined Kurdish exiles, Socialist Party TD Joe Higgins, Green TD Ciaran Cuffe, Sinn Fein TD Aengus O'Snodaigh and others at a protest outside the Dail organised by Residents Against Racism.

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1pm Saturday 31st March
Assemble at the Arts College, York Street, Belfast.

Initially called by the We Won't Pay Campaign, other anti water charge groups have also endorsed this demonstration. Anarchists from north and south of the border – from Workers Solidarity Movement, Organise! and the broader libertarian movement – will be on this march, supporting the call that the only way to defeat the water charges is through a strong mass non-payment campaign.

The second Dublin anarchist bookfair saw a debate between the Workers Solidarity Movement, Eirigi and the Irish Socialist Network on the topic of 'What sort of Ireland do we want?'. These are the speakers notes from the WSM speaker for that discussion

Audio from the 2nd Dublin anarchist bookfair of Emmet O'Connors talk on Syndicalism in Ireland and the discussion that followed it.

At this point in time it is a rare and welcome event when a book by an Irish activist is published and rarer still when a book by an Irish anti-capitalist writer receives widespread praise and acclaim. "Clandestines: the Pirate journals of an Irish Exile", which has received a slew of positive reviews following it's publication in the US by AK Press, is just such a rarity, and as it is being launched in Ireland this week means readers here will soon be able to make their own appraisal of the book.

The piece is the crucial fifth chapter of the Inquiry. This is the turning point of the book where Thompson accepts that his original project of creating a liberatory economics on the basis of classical liberalism, albeit taken far further than any previous exponent had dared, had been overtaken by an acceptance of the limits of even the most perfected system of "free" exchange. This chapter starts with an admission that he has dumped the previous written version for this new departure. In passing he gives the section headings for the original text, covering the demands necessary for the achievement of his original goal of "free exchange". The crucial section of this chapter is his dissection of the faults of even the most perfected system of exchange. His seminal framework of 5 points is still capable of enriching contemporary critique of exchange, despite the datedness of some of the problems which have to some extent been mitigated in the intervening 180 or so years by the gains of workers' and women's struggles and the subsequent development of consumer capitalism and the welfare state.

About 900 people marched through the rain on Saturday in Dublin in solidarity with the community in Rossport who are opposing Shell Oil's attempts to build a dangerous pipeline close to their home.