Ireland's political and cultural magazine
By Eoin O’ Malley The marriage referendum was a roller-coaster. The reports of thousands of Irish taking boats and flights home to vote in the marriage referendum were heart-lifting. Ursula Halligan’s revelation in the last week of the marriage-referendum campaign that she had hidden her sexuality from everyone, including at times herself was heart-breaking. She […]
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By Sinéad Pentony Remember the Spring Statement? Mainstream commentary reassured us that it was ‘prudent’, ‘getting the balance right’, providing ‘clarity’, ‘breaking with the policies of the past’ and ‘anchoring expectations in forecasts’. Some just suggested ‘nothing has changed’. Then silence. It was of course a political exercise but fundamental questions raised by the Spring […]
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By Niall Crowley Is there a new politics in the offing? The trade unions in the Right2Water campaign published “Policy Principles for a Progressive Irish Government” at their Mayday event. They are reconvening the trade union, political and community representatives that attended with a view to developing these into a policy platform. There is, however, […]
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By Constantin Gurdgiev Three recent events, distinct as they may appear, point to a singular shared risk faced by the Irish economy, a risk that is only now being addressed in our policy papers and in the mainstream media. First, over the course of May, European financial markets have posted surprising rises in Government and […]
By Seamus Maye What do you get when you merge two failed quangos? Last year the National Consumer Agency and the Competition Authority merged and became the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (CCPC). To put the intended role of the CCPC into perspective, it should be pointed out that the Authority has estimated that competition […]
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By Grainne Healy On May 22nd when the Irish people voted an overwhelming 62% Yes to marriage equality for LGBT citizens they gave an emphatic ‘Yes’ to equality. Ireland now joins 20 other countries where marriage equality has been introduced and is the first to do so by popular vote. This referendum was all about […]
By Michael Smith In 2013, I wrote in Village that Denis O’Brien, Ireland’s most powerful media owner was exercising an extraordinarily chilling effect on journalism and journalists after grossly negative findings against him in the Moriarty Tribunal. I detailed his litigious “promiscuity”: how a large number of Ireland’s best-known journalists including Eamon Dunphy, Sam Smyth, […]
By Ronan Burtenshaw Since it emerged in mid-2014 the water charges movement has grown to become Ireland’s largest social movement. Beginning with small-scale, self-organised resistance to meter installations in Cork and Dublin, the campaign progressed with the formation of Right2Water to a kind of mass politics unseen in Ireland in decades. It successes include five […]