After a decade of election growth, the Local and European results in the south were disappointing. I want to pay tribute to all the candidates and activists who put in the long hours and the hard yards. Due to your work Sinn Féin is the third largest party in the 26 Counties, the second largest party across the island and the largest party organised on an all-Ireland basis. This is some achievement in just a few short decades. Free article

It is impossible to pinpoint any one reason why Sinn Féin had poor European and local elections. With hindsight, we need to admit that we didn’t consolidate the 2014 election bounce, and the intake of newly elected councillors. Free article

Grace McManus has worked as an advisor with the Sinn Féin Seanad team for over two years, and was elected in the Bray East area in the last local elections. Here she gives an insight into the working life of a new Sinn Féin councillor. Free article

Building the green economy, reskilling and upskilling workers, investing in biogas and biomass energy and retrofitting homes across Ireland are just some of the proposals Sinn Féin has made to deliver action on tackling climate change. This comes after two radical climate change bills have been introduced by the party on solar panels and micro generation. As Sinn Féin’s David Cullinane takes on the Climate Change portfolio, Brian Stanley td outlines the critical work done so far on this issue. Free article

The takeover of the Tory government by hard right Brexiteers led by Boris Johnson has deepened both the Brexit impasse and the difficulties in restoring the Executive and Assembly in the Six Counties. The new regime was only a few days in office when there was talk of full direct rule being imposed in the event of a no-deal Brexit, a development that would fundamentally undermine the Good Friday Agreement. Free article

Melbourne’s eight-hour day monument stands opposite the Trades Hall – reputedly the oldest trade union building in the world. I found myself there tracing the footsteps of my granduncle Gus, a trade union activist in the city from the 1930s to 1960s. The monument honours the world’s first successful battle to secure an eight-hour working day in 1856. Its design symbolises the demand, first associated with textile manufacturer and social reformer Robert Owen, for “Eight hours labour. Eight hours recreation. Eight hours rest.” Free article

Sinn Féin Senator Paul Gavan’s Protection of Employee Tips Bill has won majority support in the Seanad and Dáil, despite the attempts of Fine Gael to undermine the legislation, which now heads back to committee stage. SIPTU Organiser Clement Shevlin, outlines the origins of the bill and the work of the One Galway movement campaigning for hospitality workers’ rights. Free article

The ‘Postcards from the New Republic’ series is a hat tip to British designer, artist, entrepreneur and Socialist William Morris’s News from Nowhere series of articles from 1890 published in the Commonweal, the newspaper of the Socialist League and set in a distant future where Morris’s socialist, and romantic, utopia has been secured. Our story’s protagonists are Willa Ní Chuairteoir and Lucy Byrne accompanied by their four children James, Afric, Banba and Alroy who together enjoy and endure the equity and exigency of the future’s New Republic. Free article

Easpa Acht Gaeilge, Na Míbhuntáistí do Pháistí an Ghaeloideachais Sna Sé Chontae agus Rialtas a Chothaíonn An Bac – Dearcadh Príomhoide Gaelscoile Free article