8 January 2009 Edition

Major national event to mark First Dáil

8 January 2009

AN open invitation has been extended to republicans from all over Ireland and abroad to gather in Dublin's Mansion House on Wednesday 21 January, the 90th anniversary of the inaugural meeting of the First Dáil Éireann. Sinn Féin is holding a major national event to mark the occasion which will focus on the campaign for Irish Unity and on the continuing relevance of the Democratic Programme. Free article

The Story they won't tell us

8 January 2009

The standard approach to reporting 'news' from Cuba is to find the negative story and amplify it to the exclusion of all else. Dissidents, shortages, scarcity, prostitution, the stories almost write themselves at this stage. This has been the practice for as long as it has been clear that Cuba would not assume the position normally assumed by small, poor countries situated 90 miles from a global superpower: compliant, acquiescent, serf-like. Free article

Tara Mines: Sinn Féin says minister must act if management won't move

8 January 2009

TARA MINES management has been accused by Sinn Féin of using the current economic downturn as an excuse to implement lay-offs and pay cuts at Europe's biggest zinc mine where half of the 700 jobs are under threat. SIPTU members at the mines, in Navan, County Meath, are angry at a management ultimatum to accept 'cost-cutting' plans by Monday week or face the sack for 350 workers. Free article

Waterford Wedgwood Irish job losses 'unnecessary'

8 January 2009

WATERFORD Sinn Féin Councillor David Cullinane has called on Waterford Wedgwood company receiver Deloitte Ireland to ensure that the 800 Irish jobs at the world-famous china and ceramics firm are preserved and the pension scheme safeguarded in any negotiations with potential investors in the company. Free article

Long war, dirty politics, failing economies

8 January 2009

LOOKING BACK at 1978 it is hard not to see the parallels between the economic and political environment we were in then and the one we find ourselves in today. Then we were on the cusp of a serious economic downturn and, as is the case today, the absence of political competence had few negative effects for those in government. The 'Golden Circle' could and did retire with generous pensions and perks while working households bore the brunt of the inflationary recession and mass unemployment that was to come. Free article

'There will never be another Tony Gregory'

8 January 2009

TONY GREGORY, the Independent TD for Dublin Central, died on 2 January at the age of 61 after a year-long battle with stomach cancer. He had been a community and political activist for 45 years and a TD for 26 of those years. A secondary-school history teacher from the North Strand area of the capital and at one time a member of what was dubbed by the media as 'Official Sinn Féin', he later helped to establish the breakaway Irish Republican Socialist Party with Seamus Costello and Bernadette McAliskey before leaving both. He was elected as an Independent city councillor in 1979. Free article

Conor Cruise O'Brien - defender of oppression

8 January 2009

IN 1993 Gerry Adams and John Hume were working intensively to bring together the elements that would make the Irish Peace Process. As they did so a former Irish Cabinet minister was sitting on a witness stand in the Four Courts supporting the ban under Section 31 of the Broadcasting Act on a radio advertisement for a book of short stories by Gerry Adams. Free article

Fógraí bháis

8 January 2009

IT was with great sadness that republicans in Ireland learned just before Christmas that Mike Duffy, of Philadelphia, USA, had finally lost his long battle with illness and had passed away in the United States. Free article

Nuacht na nOibrithe BY STEPHANIE LORD

8 January 2009

Union's 'respect retail workers' campaign, Retail jobs cuts in North and Bus Éireann bullying Free article

Seán Sabhat Commemoration

8 January 2009

'SEÁN SÁBHAT of Garryowen' was a true patriot who in the 1950s witnessed mass emigration, Toireasa Ferris told the hundreds who gathered at the annual commemoration on Sunday for Seán Sabhat organised by Limerick Sinn Féin. Free article


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