ireland

Achieving Ireland’s unity – a key goal for the left

1st July 2013 Socialist Action 0

By Frances Davis

Last week saw an increased level of sectarian loyalist attacks against Catholic nationalist areas in the north of Ireland, accompanying the summer ‘marching season’ and the yearly determination by a minority of unionists to force sectarian marches through areas where they are clearly not wanted by local communities. Although there have been successful resolutions in some areas over contentious parades through local negotiations, the Orange Order still refuses to engage with local residents.

Defending the Good Friday Agreement, and the lessons of 1916

2nd April 2013 Socialist Action 0

Next week will see the 15th Anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement, described recently by Sinn Fein’s Martin McGuinness as ‘the single most important political agreement in our time’.

In his speech to the Dublin Commemoration of the 1916 Easter Rising, Martin McGuinness speaks of the Agreement as a turning point in Irish history, and resulting in a period in which republican objectives can be realised. He also warns against complacency and of the threats posed to the Good Friday Agreement by those who oppose equality and change.

Situating today’s struggle for a united Ireland in the context of the revolutionary struggle of 1916 which ‘started a bush fire of decolonisation, which engulfed the British Empire’, he spoke of the inspiration it inspired in ‘generations of people throughout the world who rose up against colonial rule’.

No going back

17th January 2013 Socialist Action 0

The following article by Gerry Adams explaining the context of the sectarian attacks in Belfast, appeared on the Léargas blog on 12 January.

Belfast 2013 is not the City I grew up in. In my youth and for much of my adult life Belfast was a place in which nationalists had no rights; a place where sectarianism and discrimination, injustice and inequality were commonplace and exercised as a matter of institutional and political practice.

© Copyright Andrew Abbott and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence

Loyalist violence cannot block Ireland’s people deciding its future

11th December 2012 Socialist Action 0

By Frances Davis

Sinn Féin’s Gerry Kelly was correct this week to give a stark warning that the ongoing loyalist sectarian protests, violence and intimidation could lead to somebody being killed. His demand that the violence must end and that, moreover, unionist politicians must ‘use all of their influence to see they are brought to an end’ should be strongly supported.

There should also be strong support for Belfast City Council’s decision to move to fly the Union flag on designated days and not all year round, and those councillors who backed that.