Becoming anarchist

The making of an anarchist in Portlaoise prison

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In 2010 I was sentenced to 6 years for having possession of 20 grams of explosive powder.  I was to serve 4 years and 8 months in Portlaoise prison.  This is not an in-depth study into prison and jails, and it is not an academic piece. It is simply an experience. My experience of jail will be different than other people’s experience because no two people’s experience will ever be the same. The other person’s experience will always be different no matter how great or small.   

My experience started with 3 days questioning in a Garda station in Mountjoy. After the questioning was over I was charged with having an explosive substance, having materials used to build explosives and membership of an illegal organization.

From the Garda station I was brought straight to the special criminal court which was in Green Street courthouse at the time. I was brought to the holding cell, which resembled something out of a cowboy film or a medievil film. There was no door on the cell, there was a gate made from bars. On the wall of the cell were messages written on the wall by people that have come through here, messages of support, people's names with numbers beside their name indicating how many years the person got, names of different republican groups, pictures of soldiers with guns, symbols such as the hammer and sickle.

Interview with a Derry anarchist on Becoming an Anarchist

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When did you first become active or interested in politics?
Politics is something that it’s hard not to have, especially living in Derry. Politics would always come up in conversation no matter where I went or what I was doing. I always voiced my opinions and had most people agree with what I had to say. When it came to doing something about it like becoming involved and actually joining an organisation that was different.

Why I became an anarchist - Russia / Georgia / Greece / Ireland

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As is the case with most of my comrades, I did not suddenly wake up to find out that I am an anarchist. It was rather a gradual process that started with a determination to fight racism, challenge patriarchy and doubt the existence of some omnipresent old man with white beard.
I was born in 1987 to a Russian mother and a Georgian father in Siberia during the last years of the USSR and spent most of my childhood travelling back and forth between Russia and Georgia, changing different cities and schools and meeting people who were very eager to prove to me how much of a better nation Georgia is in comparison to Russia and vice versa. What affected my ideology the most was my family’s decision to move to Greece where I got to meet many interesting people and during the last years of school together with friends to start reading books on atheism, feminism and anarchy.

Belfast - A Working Class Journey from War to 'Peace' interview with Davy Carlin

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A conversation with WSM member Davy Carlin, from his early childhood growing up in the Ballymurphy housing estate in the midst of an ‘Irish War’ to community politics. Davy also reflects on his involvement in struggles to date from anti-racism, workplace organising and organisations from the Socialist Workers Party to Organise! Finally, we touch upon the politics of anarchism and his hope for the future.

After Nationalism...Leaving Sinn Féin for anarchism

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I joined Sinn Féin in the mid eighties with many others on the back of what we saw as a radical shift to the left and a commitment to build a 32 county Democratic Socialist Republic. I find myself outside that movement now, thoroughly disillusioned with it and its shift to a left nationalist and social democratic electoralist future.

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