The Black & Tans were part of an international phenomenon of right-wing and fascist governments using irregular & paramilitary forces against left wing people’s revolts all over Europe. In Italy these became Mussolini’s blackshirts. In Germany they became Hitler’s Brownshirts. They locked up the commies, the jews, the gays, the artists… The descendants of the […]

Read More HOW NOT TO BE A BLACK AND TAN TODAY

Christy Moore’s sung version of my poem Lost Tribe of the Wicklow Mountains, first released on the album Lily in 2016, features on the soundtrack of the new sports documentary- Coming Home – Ag Teacht Abhaile. “Paddy O’Leary was raised on a dairy farm in County Wexford, Ireland, and grew up playing on the local […]

Read More SOUNDTRACK OF THE WICKLOW MOUNTAINS

Above is the sad tale of two irish ‘natives’, long-ago broken into warring little pieces by poverty and oppression, verbally assaulting and inciting hatred against a person of colour going about their job. The bulk of the 150 or so strong fascist mob at the Dail last week was made up of people like these. […]

Read More THE IVORY COAST FREEDOM PARTY AT IT AGAIN

There were fairies in Ireland then, & I grew up there, thinking that fairy life was something that was inseparable from Irish life. Fairy stories would be told that were to me & to those around me as much realities of Irish life as are the stories that I now read in books called “Realities […]

Read More SHIPWRECKS, SEASHELLS & THE MOTHER OF GOD – The Dead Friends Part 3 #memoir #90s #westcork

All I can recall about Timmy the night of the party in his gaff in Dunmanway is him sitting in the corner with a fag burning away in his mouth & a flagon on the dresser beside him, neither smiling nor frowning, neither agreeing nor disagreeing with what any of the rest of us were […]

Read More The Dead Friends – Part 2 – Chill Out Timmy #memoir #westcork #90s #suicide

Millions of good people are feeling gutted this morning at the unexpected size of the Tory victory, & the sharpness of the blow to the electoral hopes of socialists. We are right to keen and grieve. The immediate effect of the victory will see an increased assault by the Tories on the living and working […]

Read More WHAT CAN THE IRISH LEFT LEARN FROM THE CORYBYN DEFEAT?

The party happened in a second floor bedsit in Dunmanway, West Cork, above a chipper on Castle Street, on a Friday night in October 1993, getting on for halloween but not quite.  This was four years since the Berlin Wall & the concurrent outbreak of hope all over Europe that led to a record vote […]

Read More The Dead Friends (part 1 of 5) #memoir #westcork #90s

I had my grandfather’s mouth.In famine he was told to thrive on hunger.He wouldn’t swallow it.They cut his tongue out. I had my father’s eyebrows.They arced like blackbird’s wingsand nearly touched across his brow.He kept his head down. I had my mother’s lips.She sang true songs of long ago.Now my lips are blue,she sews her’s […]

Read More An Only Child. (i.m. 18yo Zhao Liu Tao murdered by racists in Dublin in January 2002.)

Ever hear of the village of Myrsina. No? It’s a dying village in Northern Greece with a rapidly declining, elderly, infirm, & utterly demoralised population of 263. If & when it becomes entirely derelict, nobody apart from those tiny few directly concerned will even notice. “In 2001, every literary fiction title written in English sold […]

Read More Population 263 – the twilight of literary fiction.

(for Denis O Driscoll) A skinny, gummy old guy selling bric-a-brac splayed out upon sagging porta-tables along a boarded-up stretch of the East Village. He sits to one side overseeing, half-sunk into a well-frayed leather seat, chewing nothing but spittle and air, chewing and watching and ruminating. He has been hawker and watcher and ruminator […]

Read More New York Impossible #elegy #non-fiction #deathofapoet

Lucheni, the world’s greatest artist-assassin, princess slaughterer, shock-inventor and philosopher of police has returned from the dead and been hired by the Becoming Polis to destroy Europe. He has also been granted a small allowance for a general assistant. These are his terms for hiring: Good English Essential. Romance languages an advantage. You must be […]

Read More BECOMING POLIS #prophecy #destructionofeurope

This weather we all have our own way of being born. Wiccan ceremonies. Underwater cameras. Strap-on midwives. Laughing gas in near space orbit. You name it, somebody has got to be online streaming it. Well, I am a child of disaster like the rest of you, and this is my being-born story. It happened in […]

Read More Christmas Cracker #demonativity #blackmass #cocainexmas

A Mr Alex Dyke, a radio disc jockey for the BBC outfit has decided to ban Fairytale of New York, a song written by Jem Finer and Shane Mcgowan, and sung by Kirsty McColl accompanying Mcgowan. Now before I go on, I’d best lay my cards on the table. When it comes to economics, politics, […]

Read More MR DYKE AND THE ‘FAGGOT’ #BBCfatwa #fairytaleofnewyork

Fran glimpses Mac the Handsome for the last time from a packed 145 moving, in fits and starts, through traffic-choked Donnybrook. A Spring afternoon in 2009; it has just stopped drizzling & to avoid gawking at the passengers opposite him, Fran sleeves the human moisture from the window and, to see what he can see, […]

Read More The Only Real Irish Poet in Dublin #missing #murder?

BYE BYE TO THE BY-ELECTIONS Good luck to the socialist candidates at today’s counts. The fact that low turnout favours the big parties, together with a lack of a grassroots movements such as the water charges to inspire working class people to come out and vote for a left candidate, means we do not expect […]

Read More BYE BYE TO THE BY-ELECTIONS

I support the farmers 100%. I admire the militancy & determination of their protest. I call on all my friends and comrades to come out and publicly support them. A win for them will be a win for all grassroots movements – they are showing us all how it’s done. We have a lot to […]

Read More VICTORY TO THE REBEL FARMERS

Part 3 of a 3 part essay – read part 1 here, part 2 here. The ancient novelty of Working Class literature Working-class literature, that is literature produced chiefly by & for the working class, comes in  many forms & in many mediums, many informal & ephemeral, others not so, but all defined by their […]

Read More On Being An Irish Working Class Writer – Part 3

By Dave Lordan. Read Part 2 here, part three here On the same Easter Week of the 1916 rising, a Charlie Chaplin lookalike competition was held in Dublin. Chaplin, well-known to be a socialist as well as the world’s leading entertainer at the time, had a mass following among the Dublin working classes. Truth be […]

Read More On Being An Irish Working Class Writer Part 1