LOOKING LEFT, NO.4: THE IRISH SOCIALIST
Jul 28th, 2009 by Conor McCabe
Here’s the fourth and final programme in the Looking Left series, and the topic is the newspaper of the Communist Party of Ireland, the Irish Socialist. Cedarlounge has a great post on the paper here.
The panel is made up of Dr. Ann Matthews, Tom Redmond, Mick O’Reilly, and myself, and is presented by Daniel Finn.
The programme is about 30 minutes long, and touches on issues such as the Dublin Housing Action Committee, the North, the Irish economy, and Europe, as well as the CPI’s reaction to the 1968 ‘Prague Spring’, and the life and work of Betty Sinclair.
Incidentally, cedarlounge also has a great post on ‘The Squatter,’ a publication associated with the Dublin Housing Action Committee,
Looking Left Ep004 from DCTV on Vimeo.
[…] Party of Ireland, Irish History, The Left. trackback Here it is, the latest Looking Left programme from DCTV. And it’s a gem. It really is. It deals with the Irish Socialist, party paper of […]
Excellent show. Very thought provoking. Perhaps surprisingly I was not aware there was a DCTV though I’ve lived here all my life, I’ll be returning to their Vimeo page again to watch the prior shows.
At around the 17 minute mark Tom Redmond makes a very pertinent point about the similarities between the situation the country finds itself in today and that which it found itself in in the 60s. You also rightly draw attention to the systemic corruption that infects the political and business classes in this country - which is symptomatic of the attitudes of individuals that have come to power, and cemented their position through greed - that compounds our current problems and shows we may in fact be a lesser State (although not in terms of development or wealth, but em… social maturity?) than we were back then…
The show is always looking for contributors, Mark. Keep an eye out for after September, hopefully it’ll be branching into more of the left in Ireland - from the anarchist movement and the Greens, through to the Labour party, Republicans, Communists and the Trotskyists. DCTV is only going for a year now, so it’s still fairly new, but again, keep it in mind and sure maybe there’s something you wouldn’t mind working on yourself. what I mean is, we’ll be looking to cover from centre-left liberal / social democrat to Communist/Stalinist/Trotskyist/Anarchist/Maoist etc. It won’t be about just the far left, although that’s what we’ve covered so far. Hopefully we can do liberal/social democrat as well. And contributors are always wanted. so keep it in mind!
Great episode, people: educational and engaging.
Thanks for drawing my attention to that Conor, apologies for only getting back to this post now. I’ll likely remain an avid viewer for the time being - I have neither the knowledge nor the speaking abilities to engage at such a level on the Irish left, also, I’m probably too centrist… however, like I said, I’ll be an avid viewer.
Thanks, look forward to the next show.