Irish Anarchist Review (2015)

The final issue of the Workers Solidarity Movement’s Irish Anarchist Review appeared in 2015, and was replaced the following year by Common Threads.

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Articles include Tom Murray on the conflict over control of water in Bolivia; Andrew Flood on the ‘Rojava Revolution’, Eoin O’Ceallaigh on left wing football culture; Sinead Redmond on maternity care and bodily autonomy; Ferdia O’Brien on the (ultimately successful) fight against domestic water charges; Cormac Caulfield and Ferdia O’Brien on why anarchists oppose the state; Eoin O’Connor on Murray Bookchin; and Mark Hoskins on the ever widening definition of ‘terrorism’ by European governments.

Former WSM member and prominant teachers’ union activist Gregor Kerr expected to “see the battle for the soul of the trade union movement intensify.  We will be faced with a stark choice – are we going to continue to build the ‘organiser’ model of trade unionism which has been so successful in recent years?  And in order to do so, are we going to rid ourselves of the stultifying bureaucracy that is preventing this move from organising to fighting?  Or are we going to allow ourselves to be brought back into a new round of ‘social partnership’?  If we allow the latter to happen, it is likely to sign the death knell of the movement that has been so painstakingly built over the past 100 years.”

Irish Anarchist Review (2010)

In 2010 the Workers Solidarity Movement closed down its Red & Black Revolution magazine and replaced it with the twice yearly Irish Anarchist Review. Eleven issues of this free paper were published, with the final one in 2015. The print run was 3,000 and distribution was mostly at events like the Dublin and London anarchist book fairs.

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The editorial in number 1 set out its goal and listed the articles:

“Welcome to the first issue of The Irish Anarchist Review, the new political magazine from the Workers Solidarity Movement. This magazine will explore ideas and practical struggles that can teach us about building a revolutionary movement today. We decided to cease printing Red & Black Revolution, and start this project, aimed at provoking debate and discussion among anarchists and the left. For this purpose, we will be pursuing a non-sectarian approach, taking ideas from various left currents, mainstream discourse, and reflections on experiences of life and struggle. We will take, print, and discuss, anything that we find useful for our needs. We hope that readers will have a similar attitude, and will use the magazine to discuss, debate and develop ideas. We will also welcome submissions and responses to articles.

“This issue is shaped by the current financial crisis, and more particularly, by the reactions of the Irish political and capitalist classes, as they pursue an aggressive strategy of cutbacks. We have seen the implosion of the building sector, the foundering of the banks upon corruption and incompetence and the failure of our foreign investment based economic model. Moreover, we have seen that the government response has been to protect the banks and builders by transferring wealth from social services, public pay and increased taxation straight into bank bailouts and NAMAland. This needs to be identified for what it is: an act of outright class warfare.

“We are faced with a situation where a strong and organised response to government attacks is absolutely necessary, but is constrained by the prevailing ideology and practice of partnership. The most pressing concern for Irish radicals today is to build a labour movement that rejects the corporatist mentality and service-delivery model of ICTU and poses instead workers self-organisation as the basis for struggle. With this in mind, this and future issues will look for inspiration in revitalising class-based politics.

“The weakening of Irish organised labour through the ‘Celtic Tiger’ period is examined by James R’s article, and he poses some requirements for the emergence of a class movement that can deal with the threats of the present while bearing a vision of a better future. Andrew Flood looks at some of the positive elements of recent struggles, emphasising the possibilities for self-organisation and direct action made visible in the recent struggles.

“We feature two articles that try to learn from the experiences of radicals internationally. Ronan McAoidh reviews the work of Swedish group, Kämpa Tillsammans!, which argues that affinity between workers, not just union organisation, is the basis of successful struggles. An interview with Alex Foti explores organising tactics that try to deal with the growing trend of flexible working conditions.

“The reviews also tie into this theme, assessing the development of an American working-class counter-culture and, by looking at workplace blogging, discussing some ways in which this can be done today.

“Overall, this issue attempts to learn from the current weakness of the Irish working class, and explores both the origins of this weakness and some routes towards a combative class movement, capable of disrupting the ruling class offensive on living and working conditions and posing an altogether different vision of society, and, most importantly, a way of getting there.”

Common Threads (2016)

This 44 page magazine was published by the Workers Solidarity Movement in 2016, as a successor to the Irish Anarchist Review.  Only one issue ever appeared.

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The main article, by Tom Murray, makes the case that “climate change really does provide us with compelling reasons … for the defence of public transport services.”

Sinead Redmond looked at the ban on abortion on both sides of the Irish border, and at the problem of ethics boards in southern hospitals.  Many of these are fully state financed but owned and controlled by the Catholic Church.  “Michelle Harte was a cancer sufferer who was receiving treatment denied to her by Cork University Hospital’s “board of ethics” (what a misnomer) when she became accidentally pregnant.  The same ethics board denied her, a dying woman, access to an abortion and forced her to travel to the UK while incredibly ill with cancer to obtain the health care she needed – an abortion.  She subsequently died.  A Catholic bishop sits on that ‘ethics’ board.”

Other articles deal with the then growing mass boycott of domestic water charges (shortly after it was written the government admitted defeat and ‘suspended’ the charges); arguments against immigration controls and an interview with Bairbre Flood of  Cork Refugee Solidarity about her experiences and impressions working with migrants in Europe; a critical piece about the Yes Equality campaign which won the referendum giving equal marriage rights to gays and lesbians; why the 2008 financial crash happened, the dominance of speculation and the creation of a lucrative bad debt industry; interviews with people from a couple of workers’ co-operatives in Belfast, a guide to efficient organisation of meetings; and a five-page What Is Anarchism?

 

Barricade Bulletin (2016)

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August 2016 saw the first issue of a four page Barricade Bulletin from Derry Anarchists (an initiative of the local Workers Solidarity Movement branch).  It is “our intention to issue this free news sheet every two months locally to help generate anarchist info and knowledge of class struggle anarchism to a wider audience beyond the boundaries and limitations of the internet”.

Articles include an interview with one of their own members about how he became an anarchist, and a cover story about the ‘internment by remand’ of dissident republicans like Tony Taylor and the jailing of the Craigavon Two, whose case is “an obvious miscarriage of justice not witnessed since the Birmingham Six and Guildford Four”.

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There was another Barricade Bulletin published from “Free Derry” in 1969.   The Northern Ireland Labour Party was a lethargic and liberal unionist party which died from irrelevance by the end of the 1970s.   However in the late 1960s Derry had a lively and militant branch, involving much of the city’s left, and they were the publishers of this.  Among those involved were Mickey Divine, who joined the INLA and died in the 1981 hunger strike; Eamon McCann, now a People Before Profit MLA in the Northern Ireland Assembly; and veteran feminist and journalist Nell McCafferty.

Property Tax debate: WSM v. Socialist Party (2013)

Mark Hoskins of the Workers Solidarity Movement and Ruth Coppinger of the Socialist Party debate the next steps after the defeat of the fight against the property tax on people’s homes. This appeared in the August-September 2013 issue of the Workers Party magazine Look Left.

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Look Left is available from many newsagents and bookshops, including Ireland’s biggest chain, Easons.  Its circulation is about 5,000.

The Rebel Worker (Cork) no.2 (2012)

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When we posted the first issue of Rebel Worker we noted “This local newsletter was published by the Cork branch of the Workers Solidarity Movement, who announced that Rebel Worker will be appearing bimonthly (when possible) and will be distributed both on its own and as an insert in the WSM’s long-standing free newspaper, Workers Solidarity. However this plan was abandoned and only this one issue was produced.”

Four years later a second issue appeared, giving the notion of “irregular publication” a whole new meaning.  This time it concentrates on the campaign against the household tax, along with a short piece about Tony O’Reilly and the Barryroe oil field off West Cork.