Politics
-
Introduction by Kieran Glennon In the immediate aftermath of the violence that erupted in Belfast in August 1969, Citizens’ Defence Committees (CDCs) were formed in many nationalist areas; barricades were hastily erected and patrols of vigilantes armed with clubs were organised to ensure that loyalist mobs, the B Specials and the RUC were all kept […]
-
Posted in:
‘England’ in the Euros
We are told that the Brexit debate is the most important political decision our neighbour has made so far this Millennium. Even so, the debate in the UK could compete for the most boring referendum campaign ever. It’s been little more than a series of ‘he said, she said’. The claims made by each side […]
-
Posted in:
Like men only poorer
On 26th May the European Parliament passed a comprehensive and progressive report on “Poverty – A Gender Perspective”. There has been recognition of the feminisations of poverty for decades, but there has been little progress on tackling the root causes for this. There is a whole range of factors at play and the report is […]
-
Posted in:
Really Healy
In 1976, an ageing farmer living a few miles from Killarney wanted a medical card. He had just turned 60 and a few years previously had suffered a stroke. Medical cards were a relatively new phenomenon in Ireland back in those days and so he called up his local Fianna Fáil councillor to ascertain how […]
-
Posted in:
Water campaign is class warfare
“For good and bad Kelly killed the issue [of water charges], even if tens of thousands of diehards continue to protest the principle at occasional marches in Dublin” (Village, May 2015) Alan Kelly got it wrong. The mainstream media got it wrong. Village got it wrong. They were united in the rhetoric that water charges […]
-
Posted in:
Depressing and uncertain
After almost seventy days wandering in the political wilderness the two largest parties have finally agreed a programme with a 30-month timelimit. As Village was going to print the programme was being supplemented with whatever concessions are necessary to attract at least eight independents into the Fine Gaelled minority administration in a ‘Programme for Partnership’. […]
-
For years vital Irish public services were consistently starved of funding at a time when taxes were being cut for electoral reasons. This is unfortunate but it has consequences which cannot be denied, whatever the ideology of the (non-)payer. Keeping water prices at an artificially low level leads to a vicious cycle of underfunded service-providers, […]