Category Archives: About
Blog news, Nov 2017
The most-viewed piece on this blog is Women’s Rights and the National Struggle, 1916-1922. This has now had over 10,000 views.
Hope folks have found it useful!
Again, I’ve been rather lax with the blog, due to other commitments – and, I must admit, a certain amount of inertia. . .
My priorites right now are getting up more of Fintan Lalor’s articles from the 1840s and also starting to get up articles by Sean McLoughlin, appointed Cmdt-General by Connolly towards the end of Easter Week. Sean McL later played an important role in both the original and sadly shortlived Communist Party of Ireland (founded by Roddy Connolly) and in James Connolly’s Socialist Labour Party in Scotland.
He is the subject of a fine biography by Charlie McGuire. Charlie deserves much respect for rescuing Sean McLoughlin from obscurity. Every socialist-republican should buy Charlie’s book.
I am also keen to get other people involved in the blog: book and film reviews, historical pieces, and also contemporary economic analysis are particular areas of interest. At present it’s essentially me, with some articles by my friend Mick Healy. But Mick has The Irish Republican & Marxist History Project to keep him busy as his primary on-line focus.
I also want to advertise other blogs more consistently, such as the Irish Republican & Marxist History Project and John Bull’s Workhouse (about the six-county state and economy), which Belfast socialist-republican Liam O Ruairc (an occasional contributor to this blog) and veteran Cork socialist-republican Jim Lane are involved in.
Plus I will link more to material on sites such as Eirigi and Saoradh, as well as continuing to re-blog and link to stuff by Socialist Democracy.
Top Ten Articles
Below are the ten most-viewed pieces on the blog (excluding Home Page/Archives):
Upcoming
Between the death of my father a couple of weeks ago and a massive load of work-work, the blog has again taken a back seat.
As of the end of next week, however, I will be unemployed. I have work to do on my house, with an overgrown back yard of fruit, herbs and veges being strangled by weed and I have some stuff to do inside too. Apart from that, however, I hope to make a bit more progress on getting things up on the blog.
Keeping score
The pieces below have all had over 1,000 views. The most-viewed, on women and the national struggle from the Rising to the Treaty and civil war, has had almost 8,000 views; the one on the assault on Markievicz has had 1,025; the rest are part way in-between:
Women’s rights and the national struggle, 1916-1922
The burning of the British embassy – 40 years on
Politics and the rise of historical revisionism
Nationalisms and anti-nationalisms in Irish historiography
Saor Eire – Marxist and republican
The Easter Rising and the ‘blood sacrifice’
A history of the Provisional Republican Movement – part one of three
The working class and the national struggle, 1916-1921
The global-historical significance of the 1916 Rising
About
The New IRA and socialist-republicanism in the twenty-first century
Republicanism and the national independence struggle, 1916-21
Chapter 4: The Home Rule Crisis
The Rossville Street (Derry) Bloody Sunday murals
In review: Joost Augusteijn on Patrick Pearse
The lesbian fighters of 1916
The assault on Markievicz – as fact-free as it is malicious
The blog’s top five
Below are the top five articles on the blog and the number of views they have had:
Athbhliain faoi Mhaise Daoibh
Athbhliain faoi Mhaise Daoibh.
I am still in the process of considering the future of this blog, but will be taking a little bit longer to make up my mind about things.
In the meantime, I want to get a few book reviews up and also to finish a piece on Fintan Lalor.
And I’m still looking for people to contribute pieces on Ireland from a Marxist-republican perspective.
Phil
Blog top 20
Below are the 20 most viewed pieces on the blog, excluding the home page/archives and ‘about’. The top 12 have all had over 1,000 views: the most-viewed (ie Women’s rights and the national struggle, 1916-1922) has now had almost 5,000 views, while the Pearse biography has just gone over 1,000 views.
Women’s rights and the national struggle, 1916-1922
The burning of the British embassy – 40 years on
Politics and the rise of historical revisionism
Saor Eire – Marxist and republican
Nationalisms and anti-nationalisms in Irish historiography
A history of the Provisional Republican Movement – part one of three
The New IRA and socialist-republicanism in the twenty-first century
The Easter Rising and the ‘blood sacrifice’
Republicanism and the national independence struggle, 1916-21
Chapter 4: The Home Rule Crisis
The working class and the national struggle, 1916-1921
In review: Joost Augusteijn on Patrick Pearse
The Rossville Street (Derry) Bloody Sunday murals
Interview with veteran socialist-republican Gerry Ruddy
A history of the Provos – part three
The Re-Imaging Programme in the six counties
Remembering Máirín Keegan, 1932-1972
A History of the Provos – part two of three
Remembering Peter Graham, 1945-1971
Interview with Jim Lane: veteran socialist-republican
Blog future
Just a short note on the future of the blog.
In the past, up til about a year ago, I tried to get heaps of stuff up on the site and cover lots of small things that were happening in Ireland. However, it’s proved to not be possible to keep doing this and attempting to do so has become exhausting and also gotten in the way of having time (and energy) to get up more substantial stuff.
So, from now on, I won’t be making any attempt to cover various events as they happen within Ireland. Instead I’ll put in links to stories on particular struggles maybe once a week – or once a fortnight if not much is happening at any time – from socialist-republican sites. They have members on the ground involved in these struggles and do much more ongoing articles on them than I ever could.
Instead I’m going to concentrate on:
- Historical material
-
Occasional in-depth work on particular contemporary issues of Irish politics and political economy
-
Book reviews
At the end of this year, I’ll also review whether it’s worth continuing the blog.
In the meantime, I’m really keen to run book and film reviews that anyone might fancy contributing, anything on the Irish economy/ies, the new political dispensation in the six counties, historical material, etc etc.
Phil
Nollaig Shona Daoibh
To readers and supporters of this blog, Nollaig shona daoibh agus athbhliain faoi mhaise daoibh.
The last six months of 2014 have been extremely hectic for me personally and one result is that this blog has taken a bit of a back seat. Lots of stuff I had hoped to do simply didn’t get done.
In the New Year I will be extremely busy personally for maybe 4-6 weeks, but hope to get a few new pieces up on the blog. After that, I’m hoping the blog will finally return to ‘normal’, with more in the way of feature pieces on Ireland today, especially politics and economy, as well as continuing historical stuff.
On the history side, for instance, I want to do some stuff on Fintan Lalor.
And I will continue to be lobbying for socialist-republicans to form joint committees to organise major activities around the 100th anniversary of the Rising.
Phil
Blog plans and you. . .
I had hoped, now that I’m unemployed, to have more time for the blog, but it’s amazing how the day fills up with other work. Also, until a day ago, my only means of accessing a computer and the internet was by walking over the hill to the little port library which has five computers for public use. Now, however, I have a laptop, although I currently can’t really afford to hook up to the internet.
Anyway, I have been thinking quite a bit about the future of this blog.
It did occur to me to wind it up, and offer anything I wanted to write about Ireland to the éirígí site, as some time ago I became a member of Clann éirígí and have been heavily involved in producing the Clann’s bulletin.
However, the site has a core group of readers and it does argue some politics of its own: for instance, I support a woman’s right to choose on abortion and I think that should be the party position. I also think that the left-republican groups should form a united committee to plan for Easter 1916 events. I think it would be bordering on criminal if each group simply organises its own events.
Imagine 1916. Pearse leads the Irish Volunteers out one day in one place. Connolly leads the ICA out another day in another place. The two movements never speak or co-ordinate. Crazy, huh? Let’s hope that the left-republican groups don’t adopt such an approach to commemorative events, especially for the 100th anniversary.
Well, let’s not just hope; let’s argue for an ard comhairle of representatives of the various organisations to organise national events and, at local level, comhairle ceantair or cúigí to organise district or regional events.
Anyway, back to the blog and you.
As well as Read the rest of this entry
the irish revolution 