Renegotiation of Belfast Agreement looks inevitable
The paramilitary demonstration by dissident IRA members in Derry on the occasion of their commemoration of the Easter Rising demonstrated yet again that the vein of hatred that runs like a deep seam in the former heartlands of paramilitarism – green and orange -is still there to be mined and exploited for political purposes, especially […]
Rich must not be allowed to use farmland as a vehicle for investment
I have been meaning to write here about ownership of agricultural farmland for a while, but other topics came first. This week I read a striking piece in the online business magazine, TheCurrency which draws our attention to a large and growing transformation of property ownership in Ireland – investment in Irish farmland by wealthy […]
Putin has overplayed his hand – but is the West bluffing?
Olga Sukhenko, the mayor of of Motyzhyn, a satellite town of Kyiv, was found dead – dumped with her husband and son in a pit grave when the town was liberated by Ukrainian forces five days ago. She had been kidnapped by Putin’s soldiers on 23rd March. Her execution, presumably after torture and threats to […]
Council chief has no mandate for ‘aggressive’ plan to restrict cars in Dublin city
I presume that Owen Keegan, Chief Executive of Dublin City Council, was speaking in a personal capacity when he addressed what this paper reported as “a cycling symposium in Dublin in recent days, attended by a delegation of cycling experts from Amsterdam”. The report did not say who had organised or financed the symposium or […]
I am gobsmacked at the ambivalence of Irish Marxists to Putin
We must be clear on a few things. Ukraine was not, is not, and never could or will be a military threat to the Russian Federation. Likewise, Ukraine is not governed by a Nazi government and is in no need of de-nazification. The excuse used by Putin for invading and annihilating a democratic sovereign state […]
Pressuring Putin the only option on Ukraine tragedy
There is a problem with talk about providing an “off ramp” to Vladimir Putin as his war on Ukraine gets bogged down in murderous annihilation. Clearly he believes either that he can pretend to negotiate with the Ukrainian government while all the while trying to annihilate it or else he believes that he can annexe […]