Europe

If anyone was under any illusion that the mere detail of a
general election would have made any difference to the prospects for the
Irish economy and for unemployment in the state then by now their
illusions will have been severely tested.

Last
Thursday’s elections in the North saw a further swing towards both the
DUP and Sinn Féin. This reflects a drawn out process that has gradually
eroded the support for the Ulster Unionist Party and the SDLP since the
signing of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998.

As we approach the 95^th
anniversary of the Easter Rising many Irish socialists and republicans
will go out as they do every year to marches to celebrate the
anniversary of the episode which asserted Ireland’s right to national
self-determination. It was, however, also a revolution which saw the
working class prove itself in the words of Connolly as “the incorruptible inheritors of the fight for freedom in Ireland.”

As we mark the 95th anniversary of the easter Rising in Dublin, Ireland,
we republish an article written 10 years ago by Alan Woods and Ted
Grant.

In this article, written on the 50th anniversary of the Easter Uprising, Ted Grant writes that it is impossible to understand this heroic event without understanding the ideas of its leader, James Connolly – who considered himself a Marxist and based himself on the ideas of Internationalism and the class struggle. 

The announcement that the Irish banking sector needs another
€24 billion, that’s €24,000,000,000 in real numbers or another €5,500
for every Irish man, woman and child, is another sign of the capitalist
crisis in the state. Standard and Poor’s one of the main international
credit agencies has now downgraded Ireland by a further point.

In Belfast on March 26th, a twin demo to the London protest took place. Here is a report.

IRELAND: Friday’s election saw Labour gain the most
votes and seats in its history. But Fine Gael came out as the largest
party. Eamon Gilmore and Enda Kenny have established negotiating teams
to prepare the way for a coalition government. While Labour’s leaders
have given the negotiations the go ahead any final decision must be made
by the party conference which meets on Sunday. Fightback is wholly
opposed to such a deal.

SAT UPDATE: The
picture emerging in the results from yesterday’s Irish General Election
is becoming clearer as the evening goes on. The outcome represents an
historic defeat for Fianna Fáil, the main bourgeois party
in the state. FF have been in power for 61 of the last 79 years. They
have been the largest single party in Dáil Éireann
since 1932 until… today. Although only around a third of seats have
been announced it is clear that FF are destined to come in third place
not far ahead of SF. Fine Gael will become the biggest party for the
first time although they will still fall short of an overall majority.
Labour however has made the biggest strides forward with around 20% of
first preference votes. This is double what the party achieved in 2007.

IRELAND: While the political arithmetic of the next Dáil won’t be clear until after February the 25^th,
the battle lines in the state have been drawn for some time. The Irish
bourgeois are well aware that Fianna Fáil are a dead duck. Now Enda
Kenny has decided to concentrate his fire on the Labour Party. There is
one reason alone for this. The bourgeois want full control of the levers
of power and to all intents and purposes they want a continuation of
Cowen and Lenihan’s austerity programme, regardless of whoever leads the
government.

As the Irish General Election approaches, the Labour Party
leadership continues getting rid of the most radical aspects of its
election programme. And, Labour Party members only get to know about
these changes through the media. The Irish Times revealed the
last of such policy modifications on Monday, 31 Jan.