Every year hundreds of people attend the Dublin Anarchist Bookfair for a day of inspiring discussions and the opportunity of meeting lots of other radicals, browsing books and meeting campaigns.

The 11th Dublin Anarchist Bookfair will take place Saturday 16th of April around Smithfield square, there will also be a major event on the Friday night in the Teachers Club, 35 Parnell Square.

On the Saturday the book & campaign stalls will be in The Generator on the east side of Smithfield square, doors open at 9.30 for setup, 10.00 for early browsing.  The meetings will also be in two pubs, the Cobblestone at the top (north) of the square and Frank Ryans which is just off the South West corner on Queen st. 

The last year has left me a confused state between optimism and pessimism which made it quite difficult to work out what I had to say tonight on the topic of how are social movements doing in Ireland and what are the prospects for real change. 

As you may have noticed we were down for just over a week and its only in the last couple of days that we even had a visible error notice rather than an blank screen when you tried to visit. If you are following us on Twitter or Facebook you will have seen some earlier somewhat paniced messages as for a time there it looked like we might have lost it.

This blog is kind of a repeat. What seems like ages ago, I posted Engels on The Housing Question and Proudhon which had an appendix on my planned reply to Marx’s The Philosophy of Philosophy. Imagine my surprise when – this weekend – I was looking for a quote from Proudhon’s The Philosophy of Progress and had a look at it again and discovered that the post was truncated – including the appendix on “The Housing Question.” Opps.

First off, happy New Year! I hope 2016 will be a good one – so far, it looks like it will be for me. Big changes are coming and that will probably mean, for a while, fewer articles and blogs. But, then, I’ve not been that prolific recently. I have, however, found the time to get a rare Kropotkin translation revised and which is presented below in full for the first time.

 I spoke last night as part of the panel for the Dublin launch of We Make Our Own History, I'm going to expand my comments into an end of year 'state of the movement' article if I find time, in the meantime here is then audio of the meeting.

Dublin launch of 'We Make Our Own History' by Andrew Flood on Mixcloud

First off, I have posted my “A Few Thoughts on Anarchism” which has appeared in (I think) edited form in the new issue of Black Flag. It marks the 175^th anniversary of Proudhon’s What is Property? and, as regular reader know, I do like marking anniversaries of the movement. It places anarchism in its intellectual and social context and disputes the notion that anarchism can be best considered as a fusion (or confusion) of liberalism and socialism. It is not.

An interview about the wave of occupations and evictions that took place in the first half of 2015 in Dublin.

 It's not really a secret to anyone paying attention but Renua have really blown their cover with their pre-budget submission. Far from being any sort or radical departure they are yet another party for the wealthiest 1% who have been plundering our labour with the aid of every previous government.

As Michael Taft explains "Renua has called for a flat-rate tax. It represents a massive transfer from the lowest income groups to the highest income groups. It will require low and middle income groups to fund not only their own tax cuts but even higher tax cuts for those on much higher incomes.
... they want to cut inheritance tax to 20 percent while raising thresholds to €500,000. Someone inheriting €1 million would gain over €150,000."

"If machines produce everything we need, the outcome will depend on how things are distributed. Everyone can enjoy a life of luxurious leisure if the machine-produced wealth is shared, or most people can end up miserably poor if the machine-owners successfully lobby against wealth redistribution. So far, the trend seems to be toward the second option, with technology driving ever-increasing inequality"