The Taoiseach has defended the proposed 2% increase in the higher rate of VAT, saying it won’t apply to food, but only to purchases where the consumer has a choice. Certainly this was the spirit of the original VAT rules - the zero rate of VAT was clearly intended for basic staple items. You can [...]

Book Review: Britain’s Empire, Richard Gott (Verso 2011)

Hegel’s metaphor about  the awareness that comes only after the event  – ‘The owl of Minerva spreads its wings only with the falling of dusk’ - might encourage the thought that finally we are able to look back at the British empire and draw some [...]

In Occupy Dame Street practice, we indicate a point of process by making a letter “T” with both hands (like time out in basketball, for instance). We also call it a technical point. It is a very powerful gesture because it allows you to cut into the list of speakers and thus it should be [...]

Below is an interview with Professor of Economics at the University of Athens, Yanis Varoufakis which I recorded on Wednesday the 14th of September in Leinster House. Michael Taft, Research Officer with Unite the trade union was also on hand to ask some questions.
Yanis is the author of several books, two which were published during [...]

Book Review: Sins of The Father by Conor McCabe, The History Press, Dublin. (ISBN 13: 9781845886936 ISBN 10: 1845886933)
Like a ship in distress or an army in retreat, Ireland is awash with rumours about what caused our downfall. Among certain liberal citizens the idea has taken hold that we’ve all been doomed by a kind [...]

The groups Nun Attax, Five Go Down To The Sea? and Beethoven were formed around the musical partnership of singer Finbarr Donnelly and guitarist Ricky Dineen. All three groups have received considerable coverage in the past decade with the radio documentary/podcast ‘Get That Monster Off The Stage’ and Mark McAvoy’s ‘Cork Rock’ book.
Much of this [...]

Irish Left Review has heard with regret of the death of poet, playwright and memoirist Patrick Galvin who died last night. He is survived by his wife Mary Johnston and his five children. Born in Cork in 1927, Galvin was the author of numerous plays and seven volumes of poetry. A selection of his work [...]

Book Review: Back to Our Future: How the 1980s Explain the World We Live in Now - Our Culture, Our Politics, Our Everything, by David Sirota (New York, Ballantine Books $25)

We had a unusually cold spell in the west of Ireland in January 1984 with snow remaining on the ground for a week or [...]

Book Review: The Net Delusion, Evgeny Morozov (Allen Lane, £14.99 stg)
I started reading this book on the day the people of Tunisia’s unprecedented uprising prompted their president Zine Abedine Ben Ali to flee the country and end his twenty-three-year reign as dictator of the North African state. No sooner had Ben [...]

Book Review: Europe’s Alliance with Israel - by David Cronin - PlutoPress, London and New York, 2011 ISBN: 9780745330655 - £16 in the UK
By its own account, the European Union “sees human rights as universal and indivisible. It actively promotes and defends them both within its borders and when engaging in relations with non-EU countries.” [...]