Solidarity TD Ruth Coppinger is on the frontline fight for many issues but especially women’s rights and secular education. Last week she tabled the Provision of Objective Sex Education Bill which wants to ensure that children receive factual, secular sex education. Caitriona Devery spoke to her about the issues at hand.
Political Hacks.
Richard Barbrook played a key role devising Corbyn’s radical digital democracy manifesto. He was in town giving a talk at the recent Critical Media Conference. Martin Leen braved Storm Brian and ventured out to leafy ballsbridge for the lowdown on how to hack a general election. You were deeply in involved in Jeremy Corbyn’s recent election campaign, Could you tell us how you hacked the election with all the press against you? … Read More
Like History Repeating.
Above: Making a point about PREP at the last Pride march in 2017. Photo courtesy of Tonie Walsh. New HIV diagnoses are being recorded at one every 18 hours – a record high. The LGBT community has been particularly impacted. Jim Gallagher finds that Ireland’s response to the upsurge in new diagnoses has been piecemeal, patchy and ill-informed. There has been no coordinated national response to the surge in new … Read More
Art As Activism.
Above: A sticker in Dublin highlighting the contemporary HIV epidemic and our centre spread featuring a graphic by Will St Leger. It’s become a bit of rabble tradition to use the middle of our little parish newsletter for the disgruntled to showcase a particular artist we admire. When discussing ideas for #rabble14, we were stunned with statistics about HIV today. Hence, bringing Will St Leger in as our centrespreadista with … Read More
You Have Been Allocated.
Above: The cover illustration that accompanied the print version of this piece from #rabble13 by Brian Burke. A feeling of being put through the ringer, harassed into dampening employment expectations and rightly pissed off that private companies have access to their data – that’s the general picture emerging from a survey carried out by rabble into various labour activation schemes including Job Path. Rashers Tierney gives us the lowdown … Read More
UNFair.
Pictured: An Irish Housing Network protest just as the Christmas season was ramping up. The nation is getting grilled again in the international spotlight. This time over our the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. We ratified it back in 1992 and today’s examination will be carried out by a group of 18 independent experts elected by the UN. Michael Barron is he founder of Belong2 and … Read More
They’re Looting The Town!
While historical re-enactments are all the rage in this ‘Decade of Centenaries’, and we have seen everything from Ulster Volunteer Forces rallies to Fenian funerals re-enacted by enthusiastic historical societies, it’s unlikely we’ll see anyone recreate the looting of Noblett’s sweet shop come 24 April 2016. Donal Fallon has this tale of proletarian shopping in the rare auld times. Somewhat at odds with the popular narrative of the Easter Rising, … Read More
May The First Be With You.
In the early 2000’s, activist Joe Carolan cut an unmistakable figure at demonstrations in our dirty old town. For the last decade however he’s been working in New Zealand with the Unite union which, on May 1st of all days, won a victory in the struggle for McDonald’s workers’ rights. Rashers Tierney picked his brains on how they did it. How did an Irish “red” with a fondness for Johnny … Read More
#Meejits: The Youth of Today
Remember the Magaluf Girl scandal? When the tabloid’s mined drunken holiday experiences for cheap titulation to serve up as voyeuristic erotica. Paul Doyle nails tabloid journalism to its own shit-stained walls for it’s depressing and hypocritical treatment of young people doing what young people do. Make no mistake, if an 18 year old male from a forgotten working class area were to commit a crime, newspapers would have no hesitation … Read More
The More Things Change…
My Name is Saoirse is set in 1980s Limerick and is a dark comedy about shifting, peanuts and abortion. Director Hildegard Ryan and writer/performer Eva O’Connor chatted to Rashers Tierney about how the religious orders still need to loosen their vampiric grip on our schools and of course their play, which was our hands down favorite at this year’s Dublin Fringe Festival. Can you tell me something about … Read More