Documenting class struggle on the island of Ireland
What’s all this about?
“Be moderate,” the trimmers cry,
Who dread the tyrants’ thunder.
“You ask too much and people fly
From you aghast in wonder.”
’Tis passing strange, for I declare
Such statements give me mirth,
For our demands most moderate are,
We only want the earth. --- James Connolly, 1907
Welcome to Demands Most Moderate, a newsletter of Irish and UK labour news and commentary. What this newsletter becomes and the exact shape it takes is still being worked out, but I wanted to take the time to give a brief outline of the vision.
The above lines from Connolly's poem suggest a political disposition but there is no specific ideological perspective or party affiliation associated with this newsletter. I'm just a worker looking to educate myself and others about the causes of the working class with a focus on things happening on the island of Ireland, north and south. Since the island of Ireland includes the United Kingdom and the working class has no nationality I will also include relevant news and information from Scotland, Wales, and England. How much further afield I go will depend on the significance of the story to the regional context. Remaining focused on a few geographical areas will also, hopefully, make posting regularly a more realistic goal.
While this newsletter has no specific political affiliation, you may rightly assume that the author's perspective is, broadly speaking, of the Left. I take as a given the reality that class conflict drives history. The collection of stories and analysis included in this newsletter will try to illustrate that reality in real time. It might be more accurate to say this is a newsletter of class conflict as it plays out on the Atlantic Archipelago. My hope is that Demands Most Moderate will evolve from a collection that merely reflects reality to an informed analysis that interprets reality, and, ultimately, functions to raise class consciousness in the real world. We'll see how things go.
I need your help
With that in mind, I want to take this opportunity to invite all of you to help determine the course and content of Demands Most Moderate. I'm not from this part of the world and am using this newsletter to educate myself as much as I want to share information with others. I will no doubt be bringing my own biases and analytical frameworks to bear on what I choose to include. Please feel free to contact me with suggestions, critiques, comments, questions, etc. If you have a story that is not being covered in the news or is being covered in an unbalanced way, please get in touch. I intend to put working people's voices ahead of those who determine what is newsworthy in commercial outlets.
The newsletter may be new but the subject matter is not. I'm wading into a living tradition and history that I'm learning about as I go. This means I'm going to expose my own ignorance on a constant basis. If you are someone with expertise and historical understanding of the trajectory of working class history on the island of Ireland or the UK, I look forward to hearing from you about what I'm getting wrong or what I might need to do to get more things right.
The year 2020 truly shook the world. The social, economic, and political conflicts that existed before have only intensified. The demands put on the international Irish working class - from meatpacking plants, to retail workers, to healthcare providers and other front-line service workers - have been immense. The striking Debenham's workers, just as one examples, have shown the world the strength and resolve of workers, but also exposed the difficult realities of class struggle in a neoliberal state during the age of pandemic politics.
At the end of 2020 the unemployment rate in Ireland stood at around 20 percent. With billionaires consolidating more wealth while ordinary people struggle or get locked out of how the workplace is restructured over the course of the next few years, I can think of no better time to launch Demands Most Moderate.
Whenever injustice to ordinary people has occurred, the working class has stood up to alleviate inequality. My hope is that by putting the acts of courageous solidarity in one place where anyone can see just how alive and committed the working class can be, then it'll help inspire tangible feelings of real collective human potential and function as an antidote to alienation.
So, sign up to the newsletter, share with friends, get in touch, join a union, stay safe and stay tuned for the first edition of Demands Most Moderate, coming soon to your inbox.
