Workers Solidarity Movement

Guest writer Liam O’Rourke casts his eye over the neo-liberal project of regeneration in the six counties. He notes that the elite sections of both communities have no problem uniting around what he describes as the “shared non-sectarian identity of the consumer” which reduces shared space to “commercial shared space”. Yet the fact that working class people have seen little of the promised “peace dividend” has not lead to heightened class consciousness so much as it has to increased sectarian division.

A commemoration of Frank Conroy will take place in Kildare town on Sunday December 16th 2012. Frank Conroy came from Fair Green, Kildare town and was an IRA activist who fought with the working class against the fascist Blue Shirts in Kildare and Dublin during the 1930s. Like many Republicans he joined the Republican Congress and Communist Party. Conroy volunteered to fight with Republican leader Frank Ryan in the International Brigade to defend the Spanish Republic against Franco. Organisations attending the commemoration include Eirigi, Workers Party, Workers Solidarity Movement, Tus Nua, the Communist Party and Anti Fascist Action. Main speaker at the event will be Harry Owens.

  Nine men appeared in Cork's District court charged with offenses alleged to have occurred at a whiteline picket in the city on June 30th.  The charges essentially argue that the men were obstructing traffic.  Whiteline pickets are a common feature of protests across the country and are most often used in relation to prisoner issues. A whiteline picket is where a number of protestors stand on a continuous whiteline in the middle of a street holding placards highlighting the particular issue.

In August 400 people marched through Dublin to protest the internment without trial of a 58 year old woman in ill health for over a year. In May her husband told the Belfast Telegraph she “is so ill that she had to be taken to a recent visit in a wheelchair. Her hair is falling out, she has lost a lot of weight, and her arthritis has got worse. She is suffering from severe depression after a year in solitary.”

The new republican newssheet ‘The Proclamation’ produced by the Sean MacDiarmada Ardoyne branch of the republican umbrella group '1916 societies' exposes much of the contradictions implicit in the politics of the republican movement today. In the front page article it asks the question 'Where is Our Leisure Centre?'  The article goes on to contrast facilities in the working class catholic & protestant areas of Belfast.

Marian Price has been detained without trial in inhumane conditions since May 2011.  Despite the fact that the charges against her – encouraging support for a paramilitary organisation – have been dismissed and her release ordered by the courts, she continues to be held on the direction of the North’s secretary of state, Owen Patterson. 58-year-old Price spent a year in solitary confinement in Maghaberry (an all-male prison) and Hydebank prisons.  During this time she was locked in her cell for 21 hours a day while kept under constant camera surveillance.  The United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture has said that spending anything more than 15 days in solitary confinement amounts to torture.

As someone who moved from Irish republican socialism to anarchism, Kevin Bean offers a convincing and fascinating insight into the journey and demise of radical republicanism in Ireland. It demolishes the ‘sell-out’ narrative promoted by some quarters of disaffected republicanism by diligently exploring the rapid transformation of the Provisional movement from a counter-insurgency to an active partner in governing the state it now eagerly upholds.

On the 10^th anniversary of the death of former Civil Rights activist and Anarchist John McGuffin, local activists including former friends and comrades gathered in Derry’s Bogside and gave the iconic monument a fitting rebellious make-over with the red and black colours of anarchism. Over the next fortnight the black flag of anarchy will fly over Free Derry corner in a fine tribute. No Gods No Masters!

Hundreds of people gathered in Derry’s Bogside today in what was one of the largest demonstrations held yet in support of the imprisoned political prisoner Marian Price to demand her immediate release. Marian, a former IRA hunger striker had been interned following an Easter Commemoration in Derry last year on the order of Secretary of State, Owen Paterson. She was held at Maghaberry, an all-male prison, in isolation for over ten months. Due to serious concerns about her ailing health and continuing street protests she was eventually transferred to Hydebank Woman's Prison back in February ‘on clinical advice’.

This year marked the 96th anniversary of the Easter Rising traditionally a time when republicans across this island come out to remember the sacrifice of fallen comrades and renew their ideals set in stone in the 1916 proclamation. It is also a time when rival republican groups set out there stall in a show of strength and support; but what is noticeable in so-called republican heartlands is a decline in overall attendance and of the wearing of the Easter lily and houses flying the tri-colour.