Working class unity across the divide in the north of Ireland....

[Che a chara]

For all the shameful sectarian and tribalist politics played out at Stormont, it's good to see that behind the scenes there seems to be an ongoing process that helps the divide in understanding the conflict from each others perspective and unite deprived working class communities.


"What is surprising is that both loyalist and republican former prisoners have joined the trade union."

Local SIPTU trade union organiser Niall McNally said Catholic and Protestant working classes uniting under a trade union banner is harking back to socialism in Ireland in the early part of the 20th century.

"I think it's time that we got back to the days of Jim Larkin with Protestant and Catholic working class unity,"

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-13702798



"It's about informing and educating young people about the history of the conflict in terms of the sectarianism while ensuring that the next generation don't have to go through that or don't grow up and into that same format of conflict that we've had in the past."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-13689453

[Forward Union]

Actually Trade Unions have always been able to organise across the protestant/catholic divide in Northern Ireland, but mainly by keeping out of the dispute.

[RedSunRising]

Actually Trade Unions have always been able to organise across the protestant/catholic divide in Northern Ireland, but mainly by keeping out of the dispute.

Painting it as a religious division rather than a political one is obscuring the nature of the issue (though of course sectarianism comes into it).

That said a look at the strengths and weaknesses of the Communist Party of Ireland and before it the Communist Party of Northern Ireland would be worthwhile. Also the role of people like loyal4life when class unity seemed a serious threat to the state and capital in the early 30s, as well as the machinations of Maynooth.