Fownhope’s Heart of Oak Society traces its roots to the age of friendly societies, when communities provided their own safety net. Its anniversary celebrations reveal a tradition still very much alive, says MARK SEDDON
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Stars and shackles: A European disaster zone
Ireland stepped out from Britain’s fire, only to jump into an EU frying pan, argues Anthony Coughlan
ANGUS REID explains the significance of Cuba’s egalitarian in letter and spirit Family Code and the pertinent lessons it holds for democracies anywhere in the world
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NICK WRIGHT considers how the isolation of Israel and a new film on the controversial Italian communist leader are creating new reference points for Italy’s left
CARLOS MARTINEZ says Cuba’s achievements in the face of a criminal blockade are startling, but the island’s future if the United States succeeds in crushing it looks bleak
AMNON BROWNFIELD STEIN reports that far-right MPs who mobbed the event organised by Hadash may have helped raise awareness of the brutality of the Israeli right
ONE value of the 1916 Rising commemorations is to highlight the contrast between the aspirations of those who set out to establish an independent republic for the whole island of Ireland and the reality of today — a partitioned country whose native language, Irish, is on the point of death as a cradlespoken tongue, and in which the state that did come from the independence movement has been reduced to semiprovincial status in a supranational European Union quasi-federation that now makes most of its laws.
The Easter Proclamation read: “We declare the right of the people of Ireland to the ownership of Ireland and to the unfettered control of Irish destinies to be sovereign and indefeasible.”
“Indefeasible” means cannot be lost. That right may notionally exist still, but the reality of a sovereign Irish state in which its own parliament and government are the sole source of the laws prevailing on its territory has clearly been abandoned through Irish membership of the EU — as has happened with the 27 other EU members.
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