Connolly Books

Harry Boland : A Biography
By Jim Maher

The definitive story of Harry Boland, the ardent and prominent Republican, loyal confidant to de Valera and close friend and, later, love rival to Michael Collins for the heart of Kitty Kiernan. This is a detailed and dramatic account of the intricate part played by him in Ireland’s struggle towards independence. Covering Boland’s role in the 1916 Rising, his involvement with Sinn Féin and work in the 1918 general election, through his time in America during the War of Independence, when he came to national prominence campaigning for American support for Irish freedom, it also details Boland’s subsequent return to a broken homeland on the cusp of civil war and his ill-fated attempts to stop the worst from happening. A free Irish Republic meant everything to Harry Boland, and he was to give his all to try to make this reality.

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https://www.connollybooks.org/product/harry-boland

Lenin's Childhood
by Isaac Deutscher

When he died suddenly in 1967, Isaac Deutscher had completed only the compelling first chapter of a long-anticipated biography of Lenin, published here. It covers Lenin’s family background, birth and early years in the backwater town of Simbirsk up to the ex*****on of his brother, a traumatic formative event.

Drawing on a lifetime of background research, including access to the closed section of Trotsky’s archives, Lenin’s Childhood gives a novel interpretation of the earliest influences on Lenin’s personality and thinking. Most of all, it is a glimpse into an unfinished work which would have striven to save Lenin from fanatical anti-revolutionary condemnation and, perhaps more important, from uncritical communist beatification.

This anniversary edition includes an introduction by Deutscher's biographer, Gonzalo Pozo, which situates the Lenin project within Deutscher’s oeuvre and discusses the sources, influences and evolution of his never completed life of Lenin.

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https://www.connollybooks.org/product/lenins-childhood

Making Space: Women and the Man-made Environment
By Matrix

Making Space is a pioneering work first published in 1984 which challenges us to look at how the built environment impacts on women’s lives. It exposes the s*xist assumptions on gender and s*xuality that have a fundamental impact on the way buildings are designed and our cities are planned.

Written collaboratively by the feminist collective Matrix, tthe book provide a full blown critique of the patriarchal built environment both in the home and in public space, and outline alternative forms of practice that are still relevant today. Making Space remains a path breaking book pointing to possibilities of a feminist future.

Some authors worked for the London-based Matrix Feminist Architect’s collective, an architectural practice set up in 1980 seeking to establish a feminist approach to design. They worked on design projects - such as community, children and women’s centres. Others were engaged in building work, teaching and research.

The new edition comes with a new introduction examining the context, process and legacy of Making Space written by leading feminists in architecture.

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https://www.connollybooks.org/product/making-space-women-and-the-man-made-environment

Capitalism and Slavery
By Eric Williams

'It's often said that books are compulsory reading, but this book really is compulsory. You cannot understand slavery, or British Empire, without it' Sathnam Sanghera

Arguing that the slave trade was at the heart of Britain's economic progress, Eric Williams's landmark 1944 study revealed the connections between capitalism and racism, and has influenced generations of historians ever since.

Williams traces the rise and fall of the Atlantic slave trade through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to show how it laid the foundations of the Industrial Revolution, and how racism arose as a means of rationalising an economic decision. Most significantly, he showed how slavery was only abolished when it ceased to become financially viable, exploding the myth of emancipation as a mark of Britain's moral progress.

Eric Williams (1911 - 1981) was a pioneering historian and politician born in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago. He graduated with first-class honours from St Catherine's College, Oxford in 1935, and completed a DPhil in History in 1938. His dissertation, 'The Economic Aspects of the Abolition of the Slave Trade,' was published as Capitalism and Slavery in 1944, while he was a professor at Howard University

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https://www.connollybooks.org/product/capitalism-and-slavery

Intermezzo
By Sally Rooney

Aside from the fact that they are brothers, Peter and Ivan Koubek seem to have little in common. Peter is a Dublin lawyer in his thirties – successful, competent and apparently unassailable. But in the wake of their father’s death, he’s medicating himself to sleep and struggling to manage his relationships with two very different women – his enduring first love Sylvia, and Naomi, a college student for whom life is one long joke. Ivan is a twenty-two-year-old competitive chess player. He has always seen himself as socially awkward, a loner, the antithesis of his glib elder brother. Now, in the early weeks of his bereavement, Ivan meets Margaret, an older woman emerging from her own turbulent past, and their lives become rapidly and intensely intertwined. For two grieving brothers and the people they love, this is a new interlude – a period of desire, despair and possibility – a chance to find out how much one life might hold inside itself without breaking.

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https://www.kennys.ie/shop/intermezzo-sally-rooney-9780571365470

The Rise and Fall of Swedish Social Democracy
By Kjell Östberg

Historian Kjell Östberg presents the first comprehensive study of one of the most influential political movements of our time. Swedish Social Democracy was an inspiration to young socialists around the world for generations. But little remains of the Swedish model today.

For almost a century, Social Democracy prevailed in Sweden, which for many appeared to be on the verge of becoming a truly socialist country. What followed instead was a jarring adaptation to a rising neoliberal world order. Large parts of the public sector have now been privatised, social inequality is rapidly worsening, and right-wing populists have come to represent much of the working class.

Östberg discusses the reformist strategy, class organizations and social mobilisation, women’s struggle, and the creation of the Swedish welfare society. It is a history emblematic of the transformations in global politics of the last half century.

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https://www.connollybooks.org/product/the-rise-and-fall-of-swedish-social-democracy

📍 Connolly Books (upstairs)
🗓️ Saturday, Oct 5th
🕓 3.30pm
🎟️ Free

It's time to talk about the environment ♻️

The capitalist solution for the environmental abyss is selling climbing gear and warning people not to stare into the abyss, all while investing into deepening it. Selling offsets, creating the structures of climate finance, and developing business plans around climate change are, of course, the stereotypical mechanisms of capital.

However, what about the subtle points that make it to the discussion spaces of the left? Is there a chance for technology to save the planet, is small beautiful, and how wide is the spectrum of degrowth? To borrow the question from Mike Davis, "Who will build the Ark?"

Understanding Hamas: And Why That Matters
by HELENA COBBAN and RAMI G. KHOURI

Across Western mainstream discourse, the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas has been subjected to intense vilification. Branding it as “terrorist” or worse, this demonization intensified after the events in Southern Israel on October 7, 2023.

This book does not advocate for or against Hamas. Rather, in a series of rich and probing conversations with leading experts, it aims to deepen understanding of a movement that is a key player in the current crisis. It looks at, among other things, Hamas’s critical shift from social and religious activism to national political engagement; the delicate balance between Hamas's political and military wings; and its transformation from early anti-Jewish tendencies to a stance that differentiates between Judaism and Zionism.

Both accessible and authoritative, Understanding Hamas provides much-needed insight into a widely misunderstood movement whose involvement in a just resolution of the Israel/Palestine conflict will be critical.

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https://www.connollybooks.org/product/understanding-hamas-and-why-that-matters

Guerrilla warfare is the struggle of the weak against the strong. During the War of Independence, the IRA adapted to guerrilla warfare and was able to inflict severe damage on the Crown forces. By mid-1921, British casualties were continually rising and after much indecision, Lloyd George opted for a truce.

This was followed by the Anglo-Irish Treaty of December 1921. The British departed, leaving behind a self-governing state – on an island partitioned by a newly-drawn border – and the Civil War ensued six months later.

Michael B. Barry has sourced an unprecedented 650 images to tell the story of the struggle for independence, from the post-Rising period to the ruthless war that raged from 1919 to 1921. Many of these images have never been published before.

New information, such as the curious case of the alleged IRA Typhoid Plot, is revealed. This essential book brings the War of Independence alive. From the panoramic to the particular, the activities of the IRA and the Crown forces are set out comprehensively, illustrated by maps of key engagements and clear and incisive text. This volume completes the trilogy of acclaimed books by Michael B. Barry which tell the story of the Irish Revolution in illustrated form over the period from 1916 to 1923.

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https://www.connollybooks.org/product/the-fight-for-irish-freedom-micheal-b-barry

As the War of Independence began to rage in Ireland in 1920, the British, embarked on a major shake-up. They established publicity offices in Dublin to promote their version of events. In this fascinating book Michael B. Barry tells the story of fakery and dissimulation that emanated from Dublin Castle, including the so-called ‘Battle of Tralee’ staged at Vico Road, Killiney and the forged editions of the ‘Irish Bulletin’.

Also covered are the later careers of the practitioners of false news, which ranged from helping General Francisco Franco to fly to Morocco to start the Spanish Civil War, to being ennobled and taking a seat in the British House of Lords.

This highly readable book, with many colourful illustrations, casts light on a remarkable but little-known facet of the War of Independence.
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https://www.connollybooks.org/product/fake-news-and-the-irish-war-of-independence

1588, The Spanish Armada and the 24 Ships Lost on Ireland’s Shores
(Irish edition)
by Michael B. Barry

By 1588, relations between the superpower of the time, Catholic Spain and the relatively small Protestant England had deteriorated to a new low. Philip II had decided that the best way to deal with English piracy and its support for the Dutch rebels was to invade England and replace Elizabeth I with a friendly Catholic ruler. At the end of May 1588 an enormous fleet set out from Lisbon. Skirmishes along the English Channel culminated in the great battle of Gravelines. Wind blew the Armada up the North Sea, around the north of Scotland and Ireland to begin a tortuous storm-bound journey back to Spain.

In this well-researched book, Michael B. Barry tells the complete story of the Armada, from its beginnings to its return to northern Spain. He shows that while the Armada did not achieve its objective of invading England, contrary to widespread belief, it was not totally destroyed. The English fleet sank only one ship during the engagements, and over two thirds of the Spanish fleet managed to return to Spain. The main losses were on Ireland’s jagged coasts where exceptionally severe storms wrecked 24 of the ships making their return journey. These coasts were also the nightmarish setting where most Armada survivors were put to death by a Tudor regime struggling to extend its control over the whole island.

Here is the fascinating story of the Spanish Armada, brought to life in this well-researched and richly illustrated book. Written in an accessible style and full of new revelations, this thought-provoking book is essential to gain a new perspective on the intriguing story of the Spanish Armada of 1588, one of history’s most famous events.

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https://www.connollybooks.org/product/1588-the-spanish-armada-and-the-24-ships-lost-on-irelands-shores

The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering
by Norman G. Finkelstein

This iconoclastic study was one of the most widely debated books of 2000. Finkelstein indicts with both vigor and honesty those who exploit the tragedy of the Holocaust for their own personal political and financial gain.

This new edition includes updated material discussing the initial reception to the book’s publication. In an iconoclastic and controversial new study, Norman G. Finkelstein moves from an interrogation of the place the Holocaust has come to occupy in American culture to a disturbing examination of recent Holocaust compensation agreements. It was not until the Arab-Israeli War of 1967, when Israel’s evident strength brought it into line with US foreign policy, that memory of the Holocaust began to acquire the exceptional prominence it enjoys today.

Leaders of America’s Jewish community were delighted that Israel was now deemed a major strategic asset and, Finkelstein contends, exploited the Holocaust to enhance this newfound status. Their subsequent interpretations of the tragedy are often at variance with actual historical events and are employed to deflect any criticism of Israel and its supporters.

Recalling Holocaust fraudsters such as Jerzy Kosinski and Binjamin Wilkomirski, as well as the demagogic constructions of writers like Daniel Goldhagen, Finkelstein contends that the main danger posed to the memory of N**ism’s victims comes not from the distortions of Holocaust deniers but from prominent, self-proclaimed guardians of Holocaust memory.

Drawing on a wealth of untapped sources, he exposes the double shakedown of European countries as well as legitimate Jewish claimants, and concludes that the Holocaust industry has become an outright extortion racket. Thoroughly researched and closely argued, The Holocaust Industry is all the more disturbing and powerful because the issues it deals with are so rarely discussed.

Available now, link in bio 👆

https://www.connollybooks.org/product/the-holocaust-industry-reflections-on-the-exploitation-of-jewish-suffering

📍 Connolly Books (upstairs)
🗓️ Saturday, Sept 21st
🕓 3.30pm
🎟️ Free

The dominant response to the great crises we face individually and collectively is either "we can't do anything" or "I can do anything". These two extremes of "reflexive impotence" and "magical voluntarism" feature heavily in the work of Mark Fisher, who drew clear links between mental health challenges and the questions of class consciousness and capital. Fisher recognised these defeatist and individualist ideas as two sides of the same coin. He also recognised them as both the cause and the effect of the low class consciousness: the failure to recognise our collective power and our collective interest. Importantly, Fisher put his analysis in the context of mental health, notably using his own experience with depression.

In this session of Connolly Conversations, we talk about the relationship between the individual and the collective through the prism of mental health and visions for a future beyond capitalism, individualism, and defeatism. We talk about the crises our society faces, their effect on the individual, and the duty of care in organising.

Our speakers; Gavin Brewis, a published PhD researcher & lecturer. He is a member of the Scottish Poverty and Inequality Research Unit, an Associate Member of the Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research (SCCJR), and sits on the Doctoral Research Committe for the Scottish Graduate School for Arts and Humanities. Gavin's research interests include class, culture, psychosocial trauma, and emotions.

Meg Ryan is a counselling psychologist and assistant professor in global health in TCD. She directs the MSc in global mental health and her research interests include reproductive justice, gender based violence and LGBTQIA+ health and mental health.

Kuhu Tripathi is an active member of the Communist Party of Ireland and various grassroots unions and organizations in Gaillimh. Professionally, she is a frontline worker in Homeless Services where, with the housing crisis at its peak and based on her work in multiple services, she has witnessed firsthand the devastating impact of this systemic failure on the masses. Her prior experience working with marginalized groups in India adds to her critical analysis of the present conjuncture.

Cillian Ó Riain is a student activist and organiser based in Kerry and Cork. Member of the Communist Party of Ireland, Cillian does organising work within Tromlach, a left-wing community organising campaign.

Register now, link in bio 👆
https://www.eventbrite.ie/e/beyond-individualism-the-culture-of-self-effects-of-alienation-tickets-1001408619137

Radical Intamacy
by Sophie K Rosa

Capitalist ideology wants us to believe that there is an optimal way to live. 'Making connections' means networking for work. Our emotional needs are to be fulfilled by a single romantic partner, and self-care equates to taking personal responsibility for our suffering. We must be productive and heteros*xual, we must have babies and buy a house. But the kicker is most people cannot and do not want to achieve all, or any of these life goals. Instead we are left feeling atomised, exhausted and disempowered.

Radical Intimacy shows that it doesn't need to be this way. A punchy and impassioned account of inspiring ideas about alternative ways to live, Sophie K Rosa demands we use our radical imagination to discover a new form of intimacy and to transform our personal lives and in turn society as a whole.

Including critiques of the 'wellness' industry that ignores rising poverty rates, the mental health crisis and racist and misogynist state violence; transcending love and s*x under capitalism to move towards feminist, decolonial and q***r thinking; asking whether we should abolish the family; interrogating the framing of ageing and death and much more, Radical Intimacy is the compassionate antidote to a callous society.

Available now
https://www.connollybooks.org/product/radical-intimacy

The dominant response to the great crises we face individually and collectively is either "we can't do anything" or "I can do anything". These two extremes of "reflexive impotence" and "magical voluntarism" feature heavily in the work of Mark Fisher, who drew clear links between mental health challenges and the questions of class consciousness and capital.

Fisher recognised these defeatist and individualist ideas as two sides of the same coin. He also recognised them as both the cause and the effect of the low class consciousness: the failure to recognise our collective power and our collective interest. Importantly, Fisher put his analysis in the context of mental health, notably using his own experience with depression.

In this session of Connolly Conversations, we talk about the relationship between the individual and the collective through the prism of mental health and visions for a future beyond capitalism, individualism, and defeatism. We talk about the crises our society faces, their effect on the individual, and the duty of care in organising.

Red Threads; A History of the People's Flag
by Henry Bell

The red flag: there is no symbol, perhaps other than the crucifix and the crescent moon, that so many people have lived and died for. A standard of hope and resistance to millions, and of terror and tyranny to many. But why is the red flag red? How did it come to represent the workers against the propertied class? And how did it travel the world?

In Henry Bell's lively account, we journey around the globe and back through history, tracing the lineage of the red flag as both a material object and a symbol. The book explores the triumphs and disasters of the flag's history, its designers and makers, heroes and villains, and the utopias and wastelands that have kept the red flag flying.

From its martial beginnings in Rome and France, to the raising of a blood stained flag at the Merthyr Rising and the arrival of the red flag at the Paris Commune; from the jungles of north-eastern India to the factories of Cuba; Red Threads explores how this symbol of working class power first came to be held aloft in the hands of revolutionaries; who raises it today; and its meaning for the future.

Available now, link in bio 👆
or
https://www.connollybooks.net/product/red-threads-a-history-of-the-peoples-flag

We are at the Desmond Greaves Summer School 2024 ✊📚

The Party is Always Right
The Untold Story of Gerry Healy and British Trotskyism
by Aidan Beatty

Love it or hate it, it's hard to deny that British Trotskyism created some fascinating stories. Finding themselves increasingly irrelevant in modern politics, these political sects often became twisted aberrations of Comrade Trotsky's ideals. Gerry Healy's Workers Revolutionary Party was no exception.

This new biography tells the story of Healy's life, picking apart fact from fiction, to reveal a man rotten to the core with authoritarian tendencies. Saturating the party with his personality, Healy took advantage of his comrades' trust and revolutionary zeal, eventually forcing a split in 1985.

This is a tragic story in the history of Communism, wracked with accounts of abuse, collaboration with the state and vicious infighting. It also reveals the dangers of male-dominated political movements, secular cults, and celebrity culture, and is an important reminder of what can happen when a working-class movement is betrayed from within.

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or
https://www.connollybooks.org/product/the-party-is-always-right-the-untold-story-of-gerry-healy-and-british-trotskyism

“The framing is that increased EU military spending is necessary because of the war in Ukraine, when in fact this started in 2015. Way before the invasion of Ukraine. 

“In 2015, a group of military ‘experts’ were brought in, 9 of them came directly from the arms industry. The 9 companies at the table now receive 1 third of the EU’s military budget.”

At this weekend’s Connolly Conversations, Niamh Ní Bhriain and Fionn Wallace highlighted the contradictions of the EU as a ‘peace project’, increased spend going to military industries and its ongoing interventions in the Sahel region of Africa - with involvement from Irish soldiers in Mali. 

“The EU trains and takes part in civil wars, destabilising the region and resulting in mass migration to the north, all the while the arms industries continue to make a fortune from defending EU borders.”

Previously the EU had claimed taxes only went to the research and development of military industries, but they've now said they're also contributing to the ‘capacity to produce’. We're funding arms production. 

Ireland's Triple Lock system, which our government is currently attempting to errode, was itself a result of Ireland's rejection of the 2001 Nice treaty. Its refusal, along with resistance to the 2007 Lisbon treaty, highlight the power Irish anti-war organising has had.

However the Triple Lock system can be changed by the government. An argument was made to demand a constitutional amendment, via referendum, that would remove the ability to go to war from our war-mongering political elite cozying up to the EU and NATO.

“The genocide in Gaza has been a team NATO operation.”

Join us for the next Connolly Conversations titled ‘Beyond Individualism: The Culture of Self & Effects of Alienation’, Sept 21st 3pm in

🔉 T O M M O R R O W 🔉

A timely and important discussion on growing EU militarism, it's complicity in the Gaza genocide & the threat to Irish neutrality

Connolly Conversations take place bi-weekly Saturdays, 3.30pm upstairs in Connolly Books.

Free entry. All welcome. Join the conversation 🙌

The Irish in the Resistance: The Untold Stories of the Ordinary Heroes who Resisted Hi**er
by Clodagh Finn & John Morgan

In June 1940, the fall of France prompted General Charles de Gaulle to make an impassioned rallying call to his fellow citizens to fight back against the Germans. His famous radio speech, broadcast from the BBC in London, was later credited with igniting a spark of resistance which eventually grew into a vast underground network of civilians who took a stand against N**i occupation in Europe. In this collection of real-life stories, we meet the forgotten Irish men and women who joined the Resistance.

Discover Janie McCarthy, a teacher from Killarney who was active in five different resistance networks in Paris helping allied soldiers to get to safety; Captain John Keany from Cork, who parachuted behind enemy lines to help the Resistance in Italy; and Catherine Crean, the Irish governess born on Moore Street in Dublin, who was arrested for helping the Belgian Resistance and sent to the notorious Ravensbrück concentration camp.

These stories, and many more, chart the course of World War II and remind us of the power of individuals to make a difference.

Link in bio 👆

Connolly Conversations is back this Saturday. This time on EU militarisation & Irish neutrality. Join us. Be part of the conversation ✊

Connolly Conversations happens every two weeks in the Redmond-O'Riordan room, upstairs at Connolly books every two weeks. Giving a space to discuss the issues hitting us most hard.

Open to all 🙌

Are you in favour of abolishing the Special Criminal Court?

We are in favour of abolishing the Special Criminal Court.

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