Contents

• 

  A VERY IRISH COUP

  
  Shaw said it’s past time to see things as they are and ask ‘Why?’; it’s time to dream of what never was and ask, ‘Why not?’ Why not a first-class, single-tier healthcare system, a first-class single-tier education system, housing for everybody, and a taxation system that makes the rich pay their share? 12-minute read.
• 

  ANGRY COMMONERS

  
  Despite a century of republican independence, the common ownership of Ireland’s wealth promised by the first Dáil continues to find its way into the hands of privileged private interests. Public rights and welfare are now subordinate to property rights, citizens are taxpayers, and workers are human resources. 15-min read.
• 

  BROKEN DEMOCRACY

  
  Our democracy is broken and it’s time we did something about it. Self-governing republican freedom is shared among equal citizens, and so is the responsibility for maintaining it. That requires active participation from us all, individually and collectively, taking responsibility for the state we’re in. 10-minute read.
• 

  UNQUIET REVOLUTIONARIES

  
  In 1983, a two-to-one majority voted for the Eighth Amendment, banning abortion for all time and the Supreme Court ruled that laws criminalising homosexuality supported the ‘Christian nature of the Irish State’. But by 2018, we had legalised same-sex marriage and repealed the Eighth. What happened? 12-minute read.
• 

  IS THE LEAVING CERT FIT FOR PURPOSE?

  
  Two recent studies asked students whether the skills taught in their Leaving Cert courses prepared them for third-level study. An overwhelming majority said 'No', that they had not learned the intellectual skills they would need to succeed. 8 minute read.
• 

  THE ESSENCE OF HUMANITY

  
  Drunken, brawling, criminal, lazy, as thick as two short planks nailed together, and not wanted over here—that’s what ‘everybody knew’ about the average Mick when I was growing up in England. Creating a racist stereotype doesn’t need any basis in fact, just an ugly image repeated often enough. (10 minute read.)
• 

  EQUAL ACCESS TO A HOME

  
  The only possible conclusion is that current housing policy is designed to make landlords, developers, and investors rich on our tax money. Keep shovelling the money upwards and, to paraphrase Trump, ‘one day the homeless will just disappear, like a miracle.’
• 

  “And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda” by Eric Bogle – a new interpretation

  
  Written by Scottish-born folk singer Eric Bogle, the song describes the futility and horror of war through the personal experiences of the song's character. In stripping away melody the words alone are left to convey the bleak vistas and raw emotion of the story.