A poem by Sven Kretzschmar. The sit-in protesters of North Circular Roadtook their seats just when the word came aroundof the government spying on you and fellow artistsfor inadequate subordination to this green-great country.Brothers and sisters of basic dignity unclad in the lack of rebellious red, some in everyday clothes,others […]
Who Runs Ireland?
Silence as a virture in the age of the cough
Pádraig Ó Meiscill discovers his own personal lesser spotted Belfast at the start of the lockdown. When the silence came, caused by a cough, only a few were expecting it. Many had predicted an uproar over borders. A cacophony of bile about the difference, or lack thereof, between Derry and Letterkenny, […]
Cancel Rio Tinto: Going beyond symbols to fight a racist system
By Carlo Sands.When mining giant Rio Tinto blew up two sacred Indigenous sites dating back 46,000 years in the Pilbara in Australia’s north-west earlier this year, it was with the consent of the state Labor government. It shows that while the Western Australian (WA) Labor Party sometimes pays formal respects […]
How to Get Rid of Christopher Columbus
A poem by Kevin Higgins. Don’t get photographed presenting yourtwo thousand names to the Mayor,looking as if you’re graduatingwith a qualification you’ll never use.Don’t ask the Church of Ireland or National Council for the Advancement of Concerned Peopleto intervene. Do it yourself.But not explosives, no.There’s always a mostly innocentretired car park […]
Labouring beside Lough Erne: a history beyond orange and green
What The Minister for Housing Proposes: Thinking Outside The Council House
A poem by Kevin Higgins. Easy for the Opposition to hang around overheated TV studios, spouting impossible promises which at this stage soundlike a recorded message from Santa Claus.But out there, in what I like to callthe world, a constituent of mineand his wheelchair recently spentthe coldest night of the yearin a discontinued […]
Do Not Resuscitate Capitalism: Science in a time of pandemic
By Helena Sheehan. Of the many dimensions of the present pandemic that is swamping our lives and suspending our normal reality, one of the most central has been the role of science. Every report on our all-virus-all-the-time news references science. The new media stars are epidemiologists, virologists, mathematicians, physicians and […]