STEVE ANDREW enjoys an account of the many communities that flourished independently of and in resistance to the empires of old
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Left Lives in 20th-century Ireland, Vol 2
Invaluable biographies of trade union and labour movement activists ignored in mainstream histories
Unsung heroine: Sylvia Meehan, women’s rights campaigner
[Eamonn Farrell]
TOM STONE urges you to catch the last dates of a New York singer/songwriter, never afraid to challenge her audiences musically or politically
JAN WOOLF examines work that aims to give viewers a material experience of the environments in the polar north and Britain equally affected by the climate crisis
The bard recalls advice received 50 years ago from his TRB muse, and sorts out appropriate legislation for football club ownership
MICHAL BONCZA and MARIA DUARTE review Facing War, Kontinental ’25, Bugonia, and Relay
MAYER WAKEFIELD is frustrated by a production of Ibsen’s classic study of an anti-heroine that fails to elucidate her motivations
PETER MASON tunes his ear into the domestic affairs of a Carribbean couple with a troublesome son
THIS second volume of biographies of leading left-wing figures in or from 20th-century Ireland is a valuable follow-on from the first.
Its 12 essays fills a huge gap, given that much of history taught at school or fed via the media is about monarchs, generals, prime ministers, top politicians or celebrities, with the valuable contribution made by men and women in the trade union and labour movement invariably ignored or marginalised.
The lives of some of the selfless heroes of the working-class and progressive movements are illuminated and given their rightful place in the pubic record, among them Rodney Bickerstaffe, Dominic Behan, banner-makers WL Reynolds, Thomas Kain and Jer O’Leary, trade unionist and politician Brendan Corish, Irish Labour Party politician Pat Devlin and Irish Workers League and Communist Party of Ireland member John Swift.
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RON JACOBS welcomes a timely homage to one of the IWW and CPUSA’s most effective orators
A beautifully-crafted documentary from Sinéad O’Shea
JOHN GREEN is fascinated by a history that excavates the enormous role played by agricultural workers in recent times
PAUL MACGEE highlights a new series of books that brings together a treasure trove of writings by a Jewish Marxist art historian who offers readers a refreshingly grounded theory of art