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 […]

‘A Worker’s Guide to Historical Capitalism’ – a political economy podcast

By IBL team. A new podcast series aims to provide an overall view of the historical development of the capitalist system – a ‘people’s history’ of the world. Trademark Belfast is the anti-sectarian unit of the Irish labour movement, which has carried out political education for trade unionists and workers […]

Neoliberalism is dead, long live neoliberalism!

By Lisbeth Latham. Neoliberalism is a term which has entered the left lexicon over the past three decades, although in different countries it can have other analogous terms. While it is a term that the left has embraced, the right, and the advocates of what is commonly referred to as […]

Trade unionists can bring class politics to debate about united Ireland

By Ruairí Creaney. Irish unity is on the agenda. Across Ireland, it is being discussed in the media, at dinner tables and workplaces on a daily basis. While the endless calamity of a Brexit led by hard-right Tories, and the possibility of a hard border being imposed on our country […]

Her name is Jean: Court rules PSNI ‘lacks independence’ to investigate legacy murder

By Ciarán MacAirt. Jean Smyth-Campbell was shot dead in a car in a layby on the Glen Road, Belfast, just before midnight on 8th June 1972. Only for her family, she may have become another forgotten victim of our dirty war. Jean was a 24-year-old single mother of a six-year-old […]

Áras Uí Chonghaile: Visitor centre honouring Connolly’s legacy to open on Falls Road

By Séanna Walsh. We are delighted to introduce and welcome Áras Uí Chonghaile to west Belfast. James Connolly, that giant of Irish political and socialist thinking, is coming home to the Falls Road. The visitor centre is testament to what can be delivered when ambition and vision collide with determination […]

What ‘cherishing all the children of the nation equally’ means 100 years after the first Dáil

By Adam Murray. I had the pleasure recently of attending the People’s Dáil conference held on 26 January in Liberty Hall, Dublin, organised by the Peadar O’Donnell Socialist Republican Forum. The event, bringing together socialists, republicans, and contributors from a broad range of parties and backgrounds, was a commemoration of […]