Ireland's political and cultural magazine
By Michael Smith. Green Party leader Eamon Ryan has set out a ‘Green New Deal’ and 17 questions in a six-page letter sent to Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael on Wednesday in response to their framework coalition document The 17 “questions” are: Will you commit to an average annual reduction in greenhouse gas emissions of […]
Via violence to contempt to abstentionism to normalisation perhaps to government. By Dan Haverty. It is difficult to exaggerate the magnitude of Sinn Féin’s electoral performance in the Irish general election. Once the political wing of the paramilitary Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA), Sinn Féin took down a political establishment that had been in power […]
In 2016 (and 2011, actually) Village editorialised, “You would think from our recent history of some of the most notoriously bad governance on the planet, that we would have learnt that our political classes need to be replaced. In fact, this election time we see no new ideas”. Sadly democracy in Ireland needs an overhaul every […]
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar is viscerally and divisively right-wing, socially and economically; but hides it behind incoherent and inept policies and a now-suspect nice-guy media persona. By Michael Smith (February 2020). A famous 2010 Après Match sketch has Ireland’s Taoiseach Leo Varadkar openly admitting he’s plotting to knife his party leader Enda Kenny while gratuitously denying, in a mid-Atlantic nasal twang, that he’s going to set up an elite party which of course suggests he is in fact intending to do […]
Change melts political loyalties so parties such as Sinn Féin can only, strategically, aim to generate temporary commonalities. By Ronan Doyle. “The old guard can have yesterday”, tweeted Sinn Féin the day before the general election. “Tomorrow is ours. Vote for change. Vote for Unity”. On that particular morrow sufficient votes were returned to push […]
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Many reproductive rights will depend on who is in power for the next few years By Neasa Candon General Election 2020 has seen almost no discussion about how to build upon last year’s Yes vote and achieve equal access to free, safe and legal abortion services for all living in Ireland. In the lifetime of […]
Sinn Féin’s exciting economic and social agenda needs to be weighed against its ambivalence on violence, its cultism and its environmental weaknesses. By Michael Smith. Village believes equality of outcome, sustainability and accountability are the most important policies. So how does, now rampant, Sinn Féin fare under these criteria? Of course Sinn Féin has been attacked for […]