This book involves a conscious attempt to bridge progressive academic scholarship with activist groups and communities in Ireland and beyond. Taking Howard Zinn's maxim You can't be neutral on a moving train seriously, the book attempts to examine Irish society, as much as it is possible to do so, from the point of view of those who are actively fighting against ongoing attacks on the pay, conditions, rights and protections that were won by working people through the decades of the twentieth century. This effort comes at a time when the predatory nature of the capitalist system is being revealed on a daily basis, and its consequences exacerbated simultaneously across the globe. The chapters deal with the various impacts of world capitalism in Ireland, from the revolutionary upheavals of the early twentieth century, to the current economic crash. The individual perspectives of contributing scholars and activists differ substantially; they would not usually be found within the same publication. Nonetheless, they collectively manage to highlight the capitalist character of Irish society, and provide an analysis of its features that is specifically Marxist. They demonstrate that there are alternative ways of looking at Irish history, Irish political economy and the issues currently impacting on the working population and various marginalised or vulnerable groups. They show that the class struggle continues unabated and that progressive social change, now more than ever, requires the development of an organised resistance.
About the Author: Dr Micheal O'Flynn is Associate Lecturer in Social Science with the Open University. He teaches sociology part-time at the University of Limerick. He is affiliated with the United Left Alliance. His Publications include Profitable Ideas: The Ideology of the Individual in Capitalist Development (Leiden: Brill, 2009). Dr Odette Clarke teaches History and Historiography at the University of Limerick. She researches gender, emotions and class in British and Irish history, and has published work in these areas. She is currently researching the role of emotions in critical pedagogy and is editing a volume on the topic. Paul M. Hayes is a PhD candidate in History at the University of Limerick, where he also teaches History. His research focuses on twentieth century Ireland, with particular attention to revolutionary organisations, and he has published work in this area. He is the current editor of History Studies, the History journal at the University of Limerick. Dr Martin J. Power is a Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Limerick. He is a member of the editorial advisory board of the Journal for Critical Education Policy Studies. His recent publications include At The Edge: Media Constructions of a Stigmatised Irish Housing Estate, Journal of Housing and the Built Environment, 26(2), 123-142.