BY ROBBIE SMYTH

“NOT FAIR, rational or right” is how Sinn Féin’s Leinster House team sum up the ‘out of their depth’ Fianna Fáil/Green Party Coalition Budget plans.
The party will launch a wide-ranging Budget submission in November, maintaining a tradition of offering a republican alternative begun when Caoimhghín Ó Caolain was elected a TD in 1997 and now copied by other... Free article

Friday 22^nd October

TODAY we travelled through Granma province, making our way to the historical landing site of the Granma boat.  This was the boat commanded by Fidel which set sail from Mexico in 1956 thus beginning the Cuban Revolution.

On our way to the site we had the opportunity to visit the Demajagua the site of Carlos Manuel Cespedes sugar plantation. This was the... Free article

BY TOM O’CONNOR
Economist at Cork Institute of Technology

IF WE update the Bank of Ireland Asset Management Report on the ‘Wealth of the Nation’ (2006), we can get a pretty accurate picture of how much wealth there still is in the country.
That report stated that there were 33,000 millionaires in Ireland in 2006.
Firstly, the report estimated that there were 330 individuals whose... Free article

Irish republicans and the fight for the Spanish Republic

"WE pay tribute today to the memory of the some 70 Irishmen who as members of the International Brigades gave their lives with comrades from across the world in defence of the Spanish Republic over the years - 1936 to 1939
We remember in particular Charlie Donnelly from our neighbouring County Tyrone who died in the... Free article

PETER ROBINSON’S speech at the installation of the Mayor of Castlereagh last month about Catholic schools in the North receiving state funding - which the First Minister described as “a benign form of apartheid” - was really “little more than a thinly-disguised sectarian attack on Catholic education, parents and children”,  Sinn Féin Assembly member John O’Dowd has said.
Peter... Free article

A CROWD of over 500 people attending a vigil in West Belfast on Thursday night, October 21st, supported calls for more action to tackle the rising tide of suicides throughout the city.
In the previous week, four young men had died by suicide in the greater west Belfast area, highlighting the crisis facing communities trying to come to grips with what is being seen as an epidemic.Free article

‘A Fianna Fáil merger with Fine Gael makes sense,’ says grandson of FF founder

A FIANNA FÁIL TD has admitted on Twitter that the public sees no difference between Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael and it makes sense to him that the two should merge.
Fianna Fáil TD Chris Andrews later added to RTÉ that there was little difference between Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and Eamon Gilmore’s... Free article

Wednesday 20^th October

ON our second morning in Santiago de Cuba we began the day with a visit to Moncada Barracks. This was the location of the first action of Fidel Castro’s revolution and it was at this site on 26^th July 1963 that young men from all over Cuba were shot dead by the Batista Government. It was also the site of torture of many of the revolutionaries. The museum... Free article

MARTIN McGUINNESS will be the main speaker at this year’s Kilmichael Commemoration in County Cork which will be held on November 28th, the exact anniversary of the famous ambush led by Tom Barry.  The joint First Minister has been invited to address what will be the 90th anniversary of the historic battle.
This is one of the largest-attended commemorations in Ireland, reflecting... Free article

THE Annual Manchester Martyrs Commemoration Weekend, which takes place this year from November 26th to 28th, has become an important date in the calendar for republicans in west Cork and further afield.
The local Sinn Féin Commandant Charlie Hurley Sinn Féin Cumann, Bandon, revived the commemoration a few years back and it has grown from strength to strength since, attracting... Free article