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The Lost and Early Writings of James Connolly

Ciarán O’Rourke

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Review: Conor McCabe, ed., The Lost and Early Writings of James Connolly: 1889-1898 (Iskra Books, 2024) “The election of a Socialist to any public body at present”, declared James Connolly in 1894, “is only valuable, in ...

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Sam Cooke A Change is Gonna Come

Dreaming Freedom: Sam Cooke’s “A Change Is Gonna Come”

Ciarán O’Rourke

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It’s a truism, but nevertheless may be worth repeating: that music and literature of a radical bent can encapsulate the possibilities of their social moment in a way that manifestos and movement histories, no matter how subversive their authors’ politics, are sometimes just unable to match.

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William Carlos Williams: Poet of the Left

William Carlos Williams: Poet of the Left

Ciarán O’Rourke

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Often presented by literary critics as a liberal with paternalistic instincts towards the working poor, poet William Carlos Williams was in fact one of the most exuberantly left-wing poets of his generation.

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