The Soft Underbelly of homo lordaniensis-being sort of a review, but more an anatomy I’d like to think, of
Invitation to a Sacrifice (Knockeven: Salmon, 2010) pbk, 124pp
Most English-language poetry suffers from its practitioners’ besetting niceness and an excess of formula.  A poet writes a book in which persons, stories and places are sculpted into illustrations [...]

This article is based on a contribution to a seminar held at the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities last Friday called The Rise of the Indignant: Spain, Greece, Europe. Audio from the event is available here.
Politics is back on the streets of Europe, that much is clear. The PIGS are striking back. Portugal, Ireland [...]

It’s fascinating to see the dynamic of the critique of Brian Lenihan that has been offered over the last few days.
We started early over on the CLR, granted, though neither Garibaldy or myself in the day of and after Lenihan’s death did more than note firstly that this was a tragedy for him and his [...]

Whatever you wish to call it -euro-pact, Pact for the Euro, Euro Plus Pact- and from here on it will be known simply as the Euro Pact, public knowledge of its scope and function, in Ireland at least, has been extremely limited.
Whilst both the parties presently in government, and those that preceded them, campaigned [...]

Michael Burke has a highly informative post on Socialist Economic Bulletin which shows that the delivery of public goods, such as health care, education, housing, transport, infrastructure and services like post and banking, are more effective and is more efficiently provided when done through a public rather than a private entity. While Michael uses the [...]

I am coming to the conclusion that even the most progressive of political parties are stalling.
I know that there are very sound people working away at policy positions and that the left still manage to oppose the worst excesses of the continuing neo-liberal onslaught, but it seems to mean that the problem remains that we [...]

Book Review: Riotous Assemblies: Rebels, Riots and Revolts in Ireland, Edited by William Sheehan & Maura Cronin, Mercier 2011
Riots get a bad press.
After the rubble is removed, rioters tend not to have a press office established to spin their take on events. But it’s not principally this lack of media savvy that means their narrative [...]

CrisisJam #17 - a very special pewter-coated, ermine-lined commemorative edition issued in the wake of the visit of Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II to Ireland - is out now on politico.ie/crisisjam or browse the links below.
Reflections on the maturation in Ireland Introducing this very special, pewter coated, ermine lined commemorative edition, Gavan Titley [...]

The Irish election returned five TDs for the United Left Alliance, with 2.8 per cent of the first preference votes. But this victory for the Left is only part of a bigger picture of political change, writes Brendan Young, in an article commissioned by Scottish Left Review. Republished here with kind permission of the author [...]