107cowgate
Sinn Fein
The Flag Riots
By Jim Slaven The unionist protests across the Six Counties over the decision of Belfast City Council to reduce the number of days the union flag is flown over City Hall are now in their second month. The most serious trouble has centred on parts of Belfast where the UVF have been orchestrating a campaign … Continue reading
Ireland And The Broader Implications Of The 2014 Referendum
By Jim Slaven The deal between Alex Salmond and David Cameron on the arrangements for the 2014 constitutional referendum has been widely welcomed. Most commentators have focussed on process issues such as timing, number of questions or votes for sixteen and seventeen year olds but there was also a substantial political battle being waged in … Continue reading
The British Ideology
By Jim Slaven So the Olympics are over and it is time to reflect on the significance of London 2012. While the coverage has been extensive, none of it has come close to a brilliant book published before London 2012 had even started. French intellectual Marc Perelman’s extended essay Barbaric Sports does a great job … Continue reading
On Meeting Monarchy
By Jim Slaven “Fellow-workers, stand by the dignity of your class. All these parading royalties, all this insolent aristocracy, all these grovelling, dirt-eating capitalist traitors, all these are but signs of disease in any social state – diseases which a royal visit brings to a head and spews in all its nastiness before our horrified … Continue reading
James Connolly And The Battenburg’s ‘Feast of Flunkeyism’
The British state media is reporting that Sinn Fein is about to vote in favour of diamond jubilee events for Betty Battenburg. It reminded me of Connolly’s quote about similar events for Victoria’s diamond jubilee being a ‘Feast of Flunkeyism’, so I looked the article out and it is definitely worth reading again. Although written in 1897 … Continue reading
What is a Free nation
By James Connolly. We are moved to ask this question because of the extraordinary confusion of thought upon the subject which prevails in this country, due principally to the pernicious and misleading newspaper garbage upon which the Irish public has been fed for the past twenty-five years. Our Irish daily newspapers have done all that … Continue reading
