Publishing Guide

Upcoming Events

National | Bin Tax / Household Tax / Water Tax

no events match your query!

New Events

22 Mar [Dublin] National Demonstration for Palestine: End...

more >>

Other Press

Bin Tax / Household Tax / Water Tax

Public Private Partnerships are already privatising our public water system 13:00 Dec 19 0 comments

Irish Water: Killing off conservation and the real agenda behind water charges 12:03 Jan 18 2 comments

RTÉ Primetime Parrots State Propaganda on Water Charges 19:39 Dec 14 1 comments

Defeating the water charges - Don’t be fooled by the concessions 23:28 Dec 02 0 comments

Water Charges and TTIP! 01:15 Nov 16 0 comments

more >>

User Preferences

Feeds

Blog Feeds

Public Inquiry

Interested in maladministration. Estd. 2005

RTEs Sarah McInerney ? Fianna Fail?supporter? Anthony

Joe Duffy is dishonest and untrustworthy Anthony

Robert Watt complaint: Time for decision by SIPO Anthony

RTE in breach of its own editorial principles Anthony

Waiting for SIPO Anthony

Public Inquiry >>

Human Rights in Ireland

Promoting Human Rights in Ireland

Human Rights in Ireland >>

Lockdown Skeptics

Migrants Will be Put Up in Hotels for Years to Come, Treasury Admits Mon Mar 24, 2025 19:00 | Will Jones
Migrants will be housed in hotels for years to come at a cost of ?5.5m a day, the Treasury has admitted, as figures show there are 8,000 more asylum seekers in hotels than when Starmer pledged to "end asylum hotels".
The post Migrants Will be Put Up in Hotels for Years to Come, Treasury Admits appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

Legalising Assisted Dying: What Could Possibly Go Wrong? Mon Mar 24, 2025 17:00 | Dr Rachel Nicoll
Dr Rachel Nicoll was a supporter of assisted suicide but Kim Leadbetter's awful bill has convinced her to reconsider. Here are the reasons she thinks letting doctors help kill their patients would be dangerous.
The post Legalising Assisted Dying: What Could Possibly Go Wrong? appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

?5 Pints to Be the Norm After Reeves Tax Raid Mon Mar 24, 2025 15:00 | Will Jones
A pile of cost increases heaped on the pub industry next month by Rachel Reeves and the Labour Government will push the average price of a pint of beer above ?5 for the first time, bosses have warned.
The post ?5 Pints to Be the Norm After Reeves Tax Raid appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

The Crash of London?s Latest LTN Mon Mar 24, 2025 13:00 | Mike Wells
A Labour-run council has been forced to scrap London's latest LTN following a huge swell of local opposition pointing out the anti-car scheme's obvious flaws. No proper consultation as usual, says Mike Wells.
The post The Crash of London’s Latest LTN appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

?Hilariously Abysmal? Extent of Snow White?s Flop Revealed as Woke Disney Reboot Sells Zero Tickets ... Mon Mar 24, 2025 11:25 | Will Jones
The "hilariously abysmal" extent of Snow White's flop has been revealed by screenshots showing that the woke Disney reboot sold zero tickets during a prime weekend slot in the US.
The post “Hilariously Abysmal” Extent of Snow White’s Flop Revealed as Woke Disney Reboot Sells Zero Tickets During Prime Weekend Slot appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

Lockdown Skeptics >>

Voltaire Network

Voltaire, international edition

Voltaire, International Newsletter N?125 Fri Mar 21, 2025 11:48 | en

The London Virtual Summit for Ukraine Fri Mar 21, 2025 11:19 | en

After Ukraine, Iran?, by Thierry Meyssan Thu Mar 20, 2025 11:34 | en

Voltaire, International Newsletter N?124 Sat Mar 15, 2025 05:56 | en

"Kristallnacht" against the Alawites in Syria Sat Mar 15, 2025 05:38 | en

Voltaire Network >>

The Irish water charges movement

national | bin tax / household tax / water tax | opinion/analysis

Wednesday January 25, 2017 21:44

by Laurence Cox - MA in Community Education, Equality and Social Activism

Report this post to the editors

Theorising "the social movement in general"

A working paper on the water charges movement now available online for comment and discussion.

This paper uses participant narratives and Marxist social movement theory to analyse resistance to water charges as the driving force of Irish anti-austerity struggles – or “the social movement in general”. It locates this movement within the history of working-class community-based self-organisation in Ireland. Contemporary resistance to metering and refusal to pay are not “spontaneous”, but articulate long-standing local rationalities.

The current situation has seen the crisis of other forms of working-class articulation: union dependence on a Labour Party which enthusiastically embraced austerity in government; the co-optation of community service provision within “social partnership”, under attack from the state since the mid-2000s; and the collapse of far left initiatives for shared parliamentary representation and resistance to household charges. New forms of popular agency are thus developing; community-based direct action has enabled a historic alliance between multiple forms of working-class voice and unleashed a vast process of popular mobilisation and self-education.

Finally, the paper relates the Irish movement to the wider loss of consent for austerity on the European periphery, and asks after the political prospects for effective alliances “within the belly of the beast”.

The paper can be viewed or downloaded at the link below. Activist and researcher comments welcome.

Add Your Comments >>

printable version

with comments

atom feed of comments

rss feed of comments

RSS and atom feeds allow you to keep track of new comments on particular stories. You can input the URL's from these links into a rss reader and you will be informed whenever somebody posts a new comment.

Digg this

Furl

Reddit

Gab

Twitter

© 2001-2025 Independent Media Centre Ireland. Unless otherwise stated by the author, all content is free for non-commercial reuse, reprint, and rebroadcast, on the net and elsewhere. Opinions are those of the contributors and are not necessarily endorsed by Independent Media Centre Ireland. Disclaimer | Privacy