RadioReason Tommy McKearney

On Tuesday 5 March 1867, the Irish Republican Brotherhood (the Fenian Movement) published a Proclamation Of The Irish Republic, prior to attempting the overthrow of British rule in Ireland.

This document is now an item of historic interest albeit with some obvious current relevance.

Writing in the Irish Worker on 14 March 1914, James Connolly said of the mooted partitioning of Ireland

Such a scheme as that agreed to by Redmond and Devlin, the betrayal of the national democracy of industrial Ulster would mean a carnival of reaction both North and South, would set back the wheels of progress, would destroy the oncoming unity of the Irish Labour movement and paralyse all advanced movements whilst it endured.

In this episode the Peadar O'Donnell  Socialist Republican Forum convenes a discussion reflecting on the century following the 1922 Treaty and  the solidification of  partition ...  as Connolly had predicted, a century of reaction.  This conversation is chaired by  political activist Patricia Campbell who is joined by Niall Bowen of the Tyrone Peoples' Dáil,  Graham Harrington from the Communist Party of Ireland and Caoimhe NíLoinsigh  a member of the Forum.

Writing in the Irish Worker on 14 March 1914, James Connolly said of the mooted partitioning of Ireland

Such a scheme as that agreed to by Redmond and Devlin, the betrayal of the national democracy of industrial Ulster would mean a carnival of reaction both North and South, would set back the wheels of progress, would destroy the oncoming unity of the Irish Labour movement and paralyse all advanced movements whilst it endured.

In this episode for the Peadar O'Donnell Socialist Republican Forum, noted historian Fearghal MacBhloscaidh addresses the events that cemented partition and the immediate impact it had on Irish society; an impact that has led to a century of reaction.

A recent RTE TV  documentary highlighted the horrors inflicted on thousands of women and children in Ireland's 'Magdalene Laundries' (institutions run by orders of nuns for women who were deemed as "fallen" by society) for decades after the foundation of the 26-County state.

In this short podcast we ask why the state tolerated and indeed facilitated such cruel behaviour.

To coincide with the COP26 in Glasgow, the Peadar O'Donnell Socialist Republican Forum's Patricia Campbell interviews two leading environmentalists ... Seán McBrearty of the US based group ' Oil and Water Don't Mix' and Fidelma o'Kane of the Irish group 'Save Our Sperrins'. 

Examining how the Fine Gael party view the prospect of Irish unity.