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Challenge from the Peripheries

Comparative study of Sinn Féin and the SNP, theoretically the two principal opponents of the continuation of the present form of the UK state. What headaches do they cause its ruling parties?

Irish Questions

Agnès Maillot on Daniel Finn, One Man’s Terrorist. Complex relations between republican-nationalist guerrillas and socialist campaigners fighting military occupation in Britain’s oldest colony.

A Guide to Successful Defiance

Daniel Finn on Diarmaid Ferriter, A Nation and Not a Rabble. History of the Irish revolution, between popular struggle and conservative nationalism.

Ireland’s Water Wars

Ireland’s status as poster-child for Eurozone austerity has been shaken by mass protests against privatized water charges, as the discredited Labour–Fine Gael government heads into elections. Daniel Finn investigates the rise of the movement and its political prospects, with local activists pushing beyond a cautious trade-union leadership.

Rethinking the Republic

Nowhere else in the West does a single figure occupy the same position in national life as the political writer Fintan O’Toole in Ireland. The first full consideration of the cursus and corpus of this powerful critic of the island’s establishment, and the society over which it has presided. Merits and limitations of another understanding of ‘republicanism’ in Ireland.

The Soldier’s Swansong

Daniel Finn on Tommy McKearney, The Provisional IRA. Trenchant history of Irish republicanism by a critical participant-observer.

Ireland on the turn?

In a landmark study, Daniel Finn surveys the political and economic consequences of the 2008 crash, on both sides of the Irish border. Looming austerity and entrenched sectarian divides in the North; with the demise of the Celtic Tiger in the South, the unravelling of Fianna Fáil’s long dominance and emergence of a new-model Sinn Fein as the one all-Ireland party

Political Beckett?

Samuel Beckett’s work for the French Resistance set against his dogged refusal of all ideology. The traces of Ireland’s history—hunger, deferment, deflation, indeterminacy—in his exile art.

The View from Enniskillen

Declan Kiberd on Francis Mulhern, The Present Lasts a Long Time. On the ferry across St George’s Channel, contemporary legacies of Raymond Williams, for cultural politics and national identity alike.

Nationalism and the Case of Ireland

“The Enlightenment and its Romantic aftermath gave birth to two doctrines distinguished only by the letter s. The first was that people had the right to self-determination; the second was that peoples had such a right. The former belief is the keystone of modern democracy, and indeed . . .” read more

The Nature of the British-Irish Agreement

“It is an academic, personal and political honour to give the ninth John Whyte memorial lecture. It is an academic honour because John Whyte was the most dispassionate analyst of our conflict—and so is a hard act to follow. Interpreting Northern Ireland still conveys his marvellous gifts of . . .” read more

New Labour and Northern Ireland

“Whatever else a Labour government under Tony Blair may or may not do, it already seems determined to repeat the mistakes every administration, Labour and Conservative, has made in Ireland since the 1960s. As with much of the rest of New Labour policy, few of the specifics are . . .” read more

Ireland’s Obdurate Nationalisms

“Interviewer: What have you got against Roman Catholics? Belfast Protestant: Are you daft? Why, their religion of course.” read more

Reply to Porter and O'Hearn

“Sam Porter and Denis O’Hearn (hereafter poh) accuse us of radically misrepresenting the current situation in Ireland in the interests of sectarian Ulster unionism and British imperialism. They claim that our explicit and implicit agenda is the maintenance of the union of Northern Ireland with Britain, and . . .” read more

New Left Podsnappery: The British Left and Ireland

“‘We English are Very Proud of our” read more

Ireland and the NLR

“The nlr’s record of publication on Ireland is indeed a patchy one, though not as lacking in substance as is claimed by Sam Porter and Denis O’Hearn. We should certainly have published much more than we did over the last twenty-five years, but what we did publish . . .” read more

The New Politics of the Irish Republic

“In the last two years, a series of events has occurred which, taken together, seemed to signify developments of such importance that even those observers of Irish politics most prone to relish or lament its apparent barren continuities have begun to contemplate the possibility of a radical opening . . .” read more

Women’s Rights and Catholicism in Ireland

“To judge by results in legislation and social progress, one might well think that Ireland has never had a Women’s Liberation Movement. It is true that in theory women now have equal pay and equal entitlements under social welfare, and that children’s allowances are paid directly to mothers. . . .” read more

The New Strategy of the IRA

“After your Northern campaign of 1956–62, the Republican Movement adopted a new course. Could you give a brief account of this new course and why it was adopted?” read more

Introduction to Cathal Goulding

“For much of its existence the Irish Republican Army has lacked the sympathy or indeed the attention of socialists. In the period of the national liberation struggle in Ireland in the early ’twenties those who had managed to weld the military lessons of guerrilla struggle against the British . . .” read more

Ireland--Split in Sinn Fein

“Republican separatism traces its origin to the ‘United Irishmen’ movement, inspired by and contemporary with the French revolutionaries of the last decade of the 18th century. Despite—or rather, because of—the changing composition of the class blocs which have adopted it, republicanism has remained British imperialism’s most serious ideological . . .” read more

Discussion on the Strategy of Peoples Democracy

“This interview with leading members of People’s Democracy took place in Derry on the evening of April 20 1969, as the crisis which was finally to unseat O’Neill opened. Three days previously, Bernadette Devlin had been elected in Mid-Ulster. On the previous evening, a march through Burntollet had . . .” read more

Dialectic of Religion and Class in Ulster

“The six most north-easterly counties of the Irish mainland form a colony 16 miles from the coast of the Mother Country. A third of its population owe it neither historical, nor religious, nor political allegiance. The industry of these six counties has been in decline for over a . . .” read more

The Embers of Easter 1916-1966

“‘A blow delivered against the British imperialist bourgeoisie in Ireland has a hundred times more political significance than a blow of equal weight would have in Asia and Africa. . . The dialectics of history are such that small nations, powerless as an independent factor in the struggle . . .” read more

Irishman and Chartist

“this book is an exercise in historical pot-boiling. It reflects no credit on Dr. Read, the senior member of the partnership, and it continues the injustice to O’Connor of almost all previous assessments. We have long needed a rounded biography of the man who was leader of . . .” read more

The Man Who Solved the Irish Question

“The Life and Times of James Connolly,” read more

Irish Sketchbook

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