Over the last few years, blogs and blogging have started to permeate the mainstream in Ireland. Features on bloggers and blogging have started to appear with increasing frequency in weekend newspapers. However, in comparison to the US, where blogs have become an integral part of political organising, blogs are very much still seen as marginal by the Irish political establishment.

Left wing political blogs have until recently been particularly thin on the ground. However, this has started to change, with the emergence of a number of increasingly popular blogs written from an explicitly left-wing point of view. Last month, some of these bloggers came together to establish the Irish Left Review, as an online magazine to help further disseminate left wing views in Ireland. This article presents an interview with Donagh Brennan of dublinopinion.com,one of the founders and current editor of Irish Left Review, about blogging and the origins of this project.

Where to find left-leaning Irish Blogging? A Selection: Irish Left Review | Cedar Lounge Revolution | Notes on the Front | Dublin Opinion | Irish Election | Splintered Sunrise | Fringe Thoughts | IE Politics | Organized Rage | Tuppenceworth.ie

I spent the last month Greyhounding around the USA speaking about anarchism in Ireland. Fourteen cities, 20+ meetings in thirty days in cities with populations from thirty thousand to over eight million.

On my travels I used the opportunity to record interviews with many of the local anarchists who were organizing the meetings which I edited on the bus and posted to indymedia.ie once I hit my next wi-fi signal. I've collated these interviews below, over two hours of audio in all.All those interviewed are anarchists but apart from that they represent a section of the population of the North East ranging in age from perhaps 20 to nearly 70. Together they give an impression of 'the other America', that is the vast majority of the US population that is not visible in the election coverage or as characters on 'Friends' or 'Sex & the City'.

Related Links: Andrew's Archive | Black Cat Forum | Blog | Nefac: Cross border Makhnovites

Some weeks ago, with last weekend's Winter Soldier event on the horizon, I talked to David Zeiger, through the freebie magic of Skype. He's the directer of the documentary Sir, No Sir. It's a Displaced Films and BBC production that came out about two years ago, and focused on the GI movement to end the war in Vietnam.

It consists in part, of interviews with veterans explaining why they resisted the war, and in some cases went as far as to defect. Hundreds went to prison and thousands into exile, by 1971 it was a movement that in the words of one colonel had “infested the entire armed services” - yet few people today are aware of this soldiers movement against the war in Vietnam.

Related Links: Winter Solider on indy.ie WinterSoldier.com Articles by James R

The Council of Europe has called on Ireland to decriminalise abortion.

This week , the Council of Europe's Committee on Equal Opportunities issued a report saying all member states should guarantee women the right to a safe termination of pregnancy.

The report states quite clearly: “the Committee on Equal Opportunities for Women and Men considers that a ban on abortions does not result in fewer abortions, but mainly leads to clandestine abortions, which are more traumatic and more dangerous.”

Some people estimate that the number of Irish women who travel to England every year is about 7,000. Since some women obviously use false British addresses, or disguise their origins in other ways, the true figure can never be known.

Related Links: Choice Ireland — Irish Family Planning Association — Safe and Legal Abortion Rights Campaign I had an abortion

Hacking Cable - talking to the future of television in Ireland

Your correspondent talks to The Scheduler, whose computer is connected to more than 300,000 TV screens around Ireland which receive material chosen according to the Scheduler's own 'logic system'. Using one of the most complex, egalitarian and incomprehensible algorithms written in plain English the scheduler delivers programmes to the viewers of Dublin Community Television (DCTV) 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.


DCTV is a non-profit co-operative based station the likes of which are unheard of within the media landscape of Ireland.

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membership offers you a say in the station whether it is proposing programming or working on schedules etc. The station is evolving organically with different ideas and self-critics itself via the people who become apart of it.

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the essential motivation and ethos of DCTV is different we are non-profit organisation thus do not have to adhere to advertising demands as we have none. I feel this gives us a lot of autonomy over the schedule

On the Idiot Box
Revolt on DCTV , Seattle Showdown - Indymedia Video on DCTV
, Health Meeting on DCTV