It was with great sadness I learned of the death of Kevin Keating. I first met Kevin and his partner, Anne Conway, at the Socialist Democracy (Ireland) weekend schools held near Kippure, in the upper Liffey Valley in the Wicklow Mountains, from 2007-9. The political debates were of a very high standard, and the camaraderie…
INTERNATIONALISM FROM BELOW – Volume 3
Allan Armstrong has completed the third volume of his book – Internationalism from Below: Reclaiming a communist tradition to challenge the nation-state and capitalist empire. This volume is titled, Revolutionary Social Democracy, Nation-States and Nationalism in the Age of High Imperialism and the Second International (1889-1916). It can be read online at:- https://allanarmstrong831930095.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/internationalism-from-below-book-3doc-1.pdf Most of…
STILL TALKING ABOUT JOHN MACLEAN
Gerry Cairns replies to Allan Armstrong’s review of his book, The Red and the Green – A Portrait of John MacLean (http://republicancommunist.org/blog/2018/06/22/allan-armstrong-reviews-the-red-and-the-green-by-gerard-cairns/) STILL TALKING ABOUT JOHN MACLEAN Replying Reviews and reviewers can vary. In reply to a new book or a new film the reviewer has different motives – be they professional, journalistic or…
ALLAN ARMSTRONG REVIEWS ‘THE RED AND THE GREEN’ BY GERARD CAIRNS
Review of The Red and the Green – Portrait of John Maclean by Gerard Cairns Gerard Cairns has recently published his informative and challenging new book, The Red and the Green – A Portrait of John Maclean. I have known Gerry since the early 1990s and I would find it hard to call him Gerard,…
JOHN MACLEAN – SPEECH FROM THE DOCK, 9th May 1918
It is the centenary of John Maclean’s Speech from the Dock on 9th May 1918. Emancipation & Liberation are commemorating the occasion by posting it this famous speech. SPEECH FROM THE DOCK It has been said that they cannot fathom my motive. For the full period of my active life I have been a teacher of economics…
BEFORE AND AFTER NATIONALISM – An historical perspective
With the emergence of Scottish and Catalan self-determination as major political issues, some on the British Left have reacted against what they dismiss as the rise of nationalism. Ironically they usually completely fail to recognise their own Left unionist British nationalism. Their failure to organise any solidarity with Catalans at the receiving end of Spanish state…
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…
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.