Workers Solidarity Movement

As once again Cork's mainstream trade unions declined to publicly celebrate the everlasting memorial day to working peoples' struggles worldwide, it falls to Solidarity Books/Workers Solidarity Movement Cork Branch and the Independent Workers Union to mark this most important of days. A day of public talks and a community meal was organised by the local branch of the WSM at Solidarity Books, which complemented excellently the annual May Day march through the city streets this evening organised as usual by the Independent Workers Union.

WSM member Gregor Kerr on why teachers should vote no to the Croke Park Agreement. Speaking at a debate organised by the North Dublin branch of the Irish National Teachers Organisation.

Al Jazerra have released this video that shows US Apache helicopters use a mini gun against a group of journalists & civilians in Iraq.  When a van arrives to evacuate the injured that is also shot up, killing the driver.  When US troops arrive on the scene the pilots laugh when they run over a body and then  when they are told that the injured include two children laugh again saying 'you shouldn't bring your children to a war.'  Except of course those they have killed were not in a war, they were walking down a street before being  gunned down from the sky without cause or warning.

The week before last Erris fisherman Pat O'Donnell was jailed for seven months for his part in the communities ongoing resistance to Shell's attempt to impose an experimental gas pipeline on them. Across the country local Shell to Sea groups have been holding solidarity protests and other events for Pat. In Dublin this has included two protests and a public meeting in UCD. Meanwhile Shell have been forced to admit a temporary defeat in the face of local opposition and call off the construction they have planned for Glengad this year.

Wednesday 9th December saw the greatest budget attack on workers in Ireland in a couple of decades with services and pay being slashed. Many unions and other organisations called protests outside the Dail from the early morning to the late evening. WSM members took part in these protests throughout the day and provided live updates, photos and video from them via our twitter account which you can view or listen to in this article.

Shot this on Saturday morning, someone from the Rossport Solidarity Camp narrates the various components of the Shell armada in the bay and what they have been used for

Over the June Bank Holiday weekend dozens of people traveled from all over Ireland to Erris to join locals in ongoing resistance to Shell's project of imposing an experimental gas pipeline on the local community.

The long running struggle in Erris (Rossport) against Shell's attempt to impose an experimental gas pipeline on the local community has erupted in recent days with repeated local direct actions against the compound Shell are trying to construct. Meanwhile the state at the behest of Shell continues to press vindictive prosecutions against local activists. Back in March retired school teacher Maura Harrington for jailed for 30 days, today the state returned for another pound of flesh and she was sentenced to another 7-10 days in Mountjoy prison. At very short notice over 20 activists from Dublin Shell to Sea gathered at the prison gates and showed their outrage by blocking the entrance of the prison van containing Maura in to Mountjoy for about twenty minutes.

In March Ashanti Alston, a former member of the Black Panther Party and a Black Liberation Army solider, came to Ireland to speak at the Dublin anarchist bookfair. This is the video of his presentation. In it he talks about his experiences in the Black Panthers and BLA, the lessons he draws from them and what he thinks of revolutionary politics in Ireland.

In 2007/8 WSM member Andrew Flood spent a total of 16 weeks touring North American and Canada, giving talks in 44 cities. The topic was 'Building a popular anarchism in Ireland' which involved a history of anarchist involvement in struggle from around 1997 to 2007. This video is formed from the audio of the talk and images of the anarchist movement in Ireland from the mid 1990's to the present day.