The all-night editorial session, fuelled by coffee and nicotine with crackling vinyl in the background could be from anytime in the last 50 years. The ticky-tacky keysounds of Macbooks belies the era, however.

While we sit here flicking from tab to tab, signing off on one pdf after another, we find ourselves writing about the same afflictions this country has been cursed with for all those decades.

Church-State collusion, the oppression of women, gay rights, political corruption and the difficulty of putting on festivals. Yeah, you’d be forgiven for thinking the following pages were something from brandnewretro.ie found under a 1984 bedsit couch and scanned for your post-modern amusement.

Dave Johnson examines a European referendum campaign in which we were misled by all sides and once again turned out in dwindling numbers. Ciaran Murray takes a look back at yet another failed Euro football campaign and muses on the future for the domestic League. Shannon Duvall reports from the frontline of single-parenthood and Scratch Dat Itch analyses how little the Church and State have disentangled in the eighty years between the Eucharistic Congresses.

But it’s not all stone-washed jeans, Rick Astley and rain in Mosney. We’ve come a long way since homosexuality was illegal and a gay nightclub was better in than out, as it were. Check out the interview with Tonie Walsh about the infamous Flikkers club on Fownes St in ’79. Anarchaeologist takes a look at DCC’s Beta project and is relieved that the local authority seems to be learning from past mistakes.

While our new Mob Rules section demonstrates the power of modern communication is a far cry from the xerox world of yesteryear. The rabble project is only as strong as those who get involved and with our growing online presence you’ve no excuse! Our recent Boomtown competition shows that not only can we party in the big league, but that the big league knows we exist – score. So why not play our festival themed centre spread and see if you’ve got what it takes to survive festy season. For all those lifestyle issues we welcome our new resident counsellors the Session Pixies.

Yep, this issue may still be addressing some depressingly familiar themes but thankfully it is also embodies the resilient cantankerousness of the Irish mentality.

rabble’s surviving too. There are zero specific supports out there for voluntary publications like this. Locking ourselves away spewing out grant applications that shoehorn us into whatever limited arts funding exists is a rat race for pennies. Numerous things could be done to open up space for publications of our ilk. Among the underground press, we could have mutual aid agreements around distribution to encourage audience growth.

Politically, leftie politician sorts should chase taxation to scalp cash from commercial magazines and ad rags to support not for profit, publications that foster the creation of Irish editorial content. Anything at all really that chips away at media monopolisation and strengthens diversity.