EDINBURGH PEOPLE’S FESTIVAL TO COMMEMORATE ITALIAN PHILSOPHER AND ANTI-FASCIST, ANTONIO GRAMSCI

  The Edinburgh People’s Festival has secured funding for a major conference commemorating the life and work of the influential Italian philosopher and anti-fascist Antonio Gramsci.

PADDY BORT – 1954-2017

Allan Armstrong writes about the contribution made by Paddy Bort, who died on February 17th, to our understanding of Scottish and Irish cultural and political links.   PADDY BORT – 1954-2017 Eberhard Bort, Germano-Scot and Germano-Irish by choice, “in essence the ultimate European”, and known to most acquaintances in Scotland and Ireland as Paddy, died unexpectedly on…

BEFORE AND AFTER THE ‘RETURN OF THE BRUTE’

  As the official celebrations and the unofficial commemorations of the centenary of the First World War continue, many personal accounts, poems and novels written about this period have been published or republished. One novel, not yet republished, is Return of the Brute, written by Liam O’Flaherty. David Trotter, in The Cambridge Companion to The Literature…

FROM THE GPO TO THE WINTER PALACE

Rayner O’Connor Lysaght (Socialist Democracy-Ireland) has written a pamphlet entitled From the GPO to the Winter Palace, outlining the period between the 1916 Easter Rising in Dublin and the 1917 October Revolution in Petrograd. As part of our 1916 Rising centenary postings,  Rayner’s talk given to the Irish Labour History Conference in Dublin on Saturday, October…

WHICH WAY NOW – ‘BREXIT’ OR ‘EX-BRIT’?

Allan Armstrong, of the Campaign for a European Republican Socialist Party, draws some political conclusions from the online discussion (http://republicancommunist.org/blog/2016/11/20/from-farages-brexit-to-trumps-brexit-plus-plus-plus-and-on-to-madame-frexit/)  of the political situation in the UK in the aftermath of the Trump vote.   _________   WHICH WAY NOW – ‘BREXIT’ OR ‘EX-BRIT’?  a) Brexit and the change in British ruling class thinking Since the…

ST. ANDREWS DAY OR JOHN MACLEAN DAY?

Today is St. Andrews Day. It is not yet a full-blown public holiday, although there is some partial observance. The following article was written by Allan Armstrong for the Lothian SSP bulletin in November 2007. It is even more relevant today, when Scottish nationalists try to subsume all of us under the saltire.

FROM FARAGE’S BREXIT TO TRUMP’S “BREXIT PLUS, PLUS, PLUS”, AND ON TO ‘MADAME FREXIT’? – a dialogue

WHAT DOES TRUMP’S VICTORY SIGNIFY? – ALLAN ARMSTRONG IN CONVERSATION WITH ALAN BISSETT, BRIAN HIGGINS, PAUL STEWART AND JOHN TUMMON (see short biogs at end)    1. ALLAN ARMSTRONG – 9.11.16 “An even greater leap into fantasy land is the belief that Brexit will provide a progressive example to other member states wanting to break…

JAMES CONNOLLY, THE 1916 EASTER RISING AND THE DURHAM MINERS ASSOCIATION

As part of our series of articles commemorating the centenary of 1916 Rising in Dublin, we are publishing the following article by Dave Temple of the Durham Miners Association, first published in their special journal for the Durham Miners Gala held on July 9th (see http://republicancommunist.org/blog/2016/08/03/david-hopper-and-the-durham-miners-gala/) JAMES CONNOLLY, THE 1916 EASTER RISING  AND THE DURHAM MINERS…