"We need to have a *serious* debate about [X]!" Aka you all need to agree with me

"why do Irish people only care about Israel and not other bad counties?" Well, as the people posing this whataboutery always point out, Ireland is part of the Western system, and the West is currently backing Israel to the hilt. We're morally obligated to try and stop this.

A party can be entirely sincere about what it stands for and still not be the form the moment requires. The eighth essay, on the week the Irish left began contesting Sinn Féin’s place in it. Left Republican Party 💭✍🏼 #Spéirghorm #IrishPolitics 🔗 forlouth.medium.com/left-republi...

There is something actually pretty unpleasant about Pat posing this question and then, instead of following his own advice, using the article to say what he thinks Jews think But yeah feel free to reach out any time you want to do more than talk to yourself and pretend it's us, lad

we need to tone down the way we talk about emigration in Ireland. it is obviously a subject with a traumatic history for us, but most people who emigrate today would still emigrate if we didn't have a housing crisis, and this histrionic framing helps to fuel anti-immigrant backlash

He says the soft left "do not want to dismantle the capitalist system that drives housing and healthcare inequality; they merely want capitalism with a human face." A fine line but it begs the question: does SF want to dismantle capitalism? On paper their economic policy is no more left than SDs.

😬 - Hazzard has taken MacBradaigh’s essay and walked the whole thing further to the right. SF is at sea - and its committed left republican thinkers are continuing the drifting.

The Social Democrats are the only party fully committed to left unity and achieving a left government. www.thejournal.ie/seanad-byele...

Irish left wing parties: have disagreements Irish Times: does this show that the left alliance has collapsed?!

So many in the media are framing the "left alliance" as this grand formal thing so that once any tensions arise between parties, it proves that a left alliance will fail. There's sadly no formal "alliance", and *no one* was making the claim below 👇 www.irishtimes.com/politics/202...

In a single transferable vote system, parties can't control who their voters give preferences to.

'We are called upon...to decide the question propounded in the Sermon on the Mount, as to whether we will worship God or Mammon. The present day is a Mammon-worshipping age. Socialism proposes to dethrone the brute-god Mammon & to lift humanity into its place' (Keir Hardie, 23 April 1901).

I had some Aontu reps at my door the other day telling me the media is overstuffed with left wing voices.

Why we need more democracy at work by @standespiegelaere.bsky.social www.socialeurope.eu/from-hitlers...

There is a fundamental paradox with this claim from Mick Clifford - hardly a prolific commentator on the six counties - that the 'old sectarian state' is gone and yet there still needs to be a supermajority within its territory for a united Ireland.

Government’s sudden interest in nuclear energy is a distraction. It's a tactic to mask their huge failures in developing this country’s biggest natural resource – off-shore wind. Instead of turning to nuclear, we should be doubling down on renewables, off-shore wind and solar.

If you read one thing today, make it this...

I reviewed Fintan O'Toole and Sam McBride's book 'For and Against A United Ireland' for the Dublin Review of Books. It's fair to say I had some problems with the framing of the book. drb.ie/blog/reasoni...

The basic structure doctrine comes to the Indian Ocean 🇸🇨 Last December, Seychelles' Constitutional Court ruled it *does* have the power to strike down constitutional amendments that violate Constitution's ‘basic democratic structure’. www.seychelleshumanrights.com/images/downl...

Happy May Day 🚩✊

It would be nice to be governed, just once, by people who didn't view the populace with utter contempt

Published this dull but worthy op Ed, which despite the headline is really about the peculiar process by which the Irish president considers whether to refer bills to the Supreme Court to decide their constitutionality www.irishtimes.com/opinion/2026...

An Post have re-issued the 1937 commemorative Constitution stamp. That's an allegory of Ireland writing the opening words of the preamble in Irish.

The government really are the biggest bunch of cowards. They have the constitutional power to stop this overseas trip, but they'd rather anonymously complain about it to their court scribes in the IT. www.irishtimes.com/politics/202...

Join us in The Teacher's Club for a night of left unity! Dublin Central is a clear oppurtunity to put another left voice in the Dáil. But we cannot take that for granted. The left must come together to achieve the change that is so clearly needed in this country. #UnitedLeft #DublinCentral

Irish government position on neutrality: 'Neutrality is useless and never helped anyone and its supporters are idiots' 'Also, I support neutrality' What?

Rules of engagement have changed following fuel tax cuts, say ICTU. Good – time for more militant trade union movement. www.ictu.ie/news/unions-...

I just can't get highest number of evictions since the famine out of my head, a beaten people

What a fantastic line up for the Council of State – comhghairdeas to @donnchalaw.bsky.social for his appointment! 👏

That Ireland (an allegedly neutral country) is still allowing US and Israeli planes full of munitions thru its airspace and troop transports refuel at Shannon while Italy, Spain and France (NATO Members) refuse is certainly something worth thinking about

Jacqui McCrum told a defence conference in France that Ireland's approach to neutrality is 'maturing' but there is a 'smaller voice that gets a lot of air time.' 70% of Irish people consistently poll in favour of retaining the traditional policy of neutrality. www.irishtimes.com/ireland/2026...

Research funded by special boys says special boys key to functioning of society and economy. Got it.

"The role, and indeed the lifestyle, of the president is a like-for-like replacement of the monarchy that preceded it." No it's not, and a lot of the criticism of President Connolly/Higgins' commentary is based on this false assumption. www.irishtimes.com/opinion/lett...

The Irish govt seeks to amend Art 3 and Art 8 of the ECHR as they apply to migration cases. This insidious shift in policy is very concerning. The ECHR protects everyone's fundamental human rights. It's also central to the Good Friday Agreement. We can't allow human rights law to be watered down.

I guess it boils down to whether you think commenting on a foreign policy issue = making foreign policy.

Up is down, black is white, calling out assaults on international law is 'hugely problematic'.

"unlike our government, most Irish people are not emotionally calcified men operating in a bizarre echo chamber where cruelty is rebranded “making the hard decisions” and tugging the forelock to despicable bullies is “bravery”." 👏👏

And this is precisely why it would be terrible for us to join NATO. Every Irish government would fall in line with every harebrained Yank misadventure, bowing, scraping and tugging the forelock while declaring themselves delighted to be finally playing senior hurling.

An important article - in an era of asymmetric warfare and dramatic power imbalances on the world stage, Western democratic leaders, so often in public, will likely come to regret the degradation of the norm against Head of State/Govt assassination by other states much more than autocrats will...

The importance of maintaining the triple lock could not be clearer. Any government that can't call out clear violations of international law because they're afraid how the US will respond cannot be trusted with decisions about foreign deployment of troops. It's as simple as that.

The Constitution commits Ireland to respecting international law - the Minister ought to know the first principles.

what does the Irish government understand international law to mean if the unprovoked US attacks on Venezuela and Iran – with the kidnapping of a head of state in one case and the murder of a head of state in the other – do not clearly violate it?

Powers of president require reform – Michael D www.advertiser.ie/galway/artic...

Kaja Kallas is a dangerous warmongerer who should never have been allowed anywhere near the senior foreign policy position in the EU. she rightly decries Russian imperial aggression, but will back any amount of imperial aggression by her allies as long as the bombs are eviscerating non-Europeans

Sky news: "we must assume that the Americans and Israelis have taken all calculations into account." Why must we assume that?

“Neutrality remains one of the most widely supported pillars of Irish foreign policy, rooted in historical experience, post-colonial identity, and a long-standing preference for international mediation rather than military alignment.” ~Patricia MacBride The Irish News ☕️🥐

My favourite submission from recent years in Irish courts...why doesn't the High Court simply declare me to be the President?