Welcome to the October edition of Rundale. We bring you three pieces reflecting on a range of topics, all of which bear on questions of movement building and political education in one way or another.
In Bucked Under a Love of the land Sinéad Mercier writes about the influence of early experiences in education had on her understanding of the central role that ordinary people had in making history and the fundamental importance of the connection between land and liberation. She writes of historic land struggles in Connemara during the C19th – struggles that remain alive today in songs and poetry passed on across generations. Mercier looks at historic land management practices in the west of Ireland that predated British colonial rule – including the Rundale system – where land was held and worked in common, and law was grounded in place. These practices of commonage continue to resonate today in the face of environmental crises brought about by capitalist property relations and industrialised agriculture.
In Thoughts on Change and Blind Solidarity: Flotilla moving against the tide of revolutionary clarity, Sara Troian argues that whilst the massive growth in Palestinian solidarity that has emerged in response to the Zionist genocide in Gaza is welcome, it also carries risks. There is a risk that the huge number of those who are new to Palestine solidarity, and new to activism, work without clear anti-imperialist commitments or a firm grounding in what effective solidarity is. Troian calls for deep organising and clear political education to guide the Palestinian solidarity movement to success and avoid the pitfalls of centering the west as a moral agent or emptying the language of solidarity of political meaning.
In our latest book review El Reid-Buckley casts their eye to How Ireland’s LGBTQ+ Youth Movement was Built by long-time queer activist Michael Barron. Reid-Buckley outlines how Barron’s book deftly narrates the development of Ireland’s LGBTQ+ rights movement in a way that ensures that young people’s experiences are not omitted, as so often remains the case including in the ways liberation is conceived. If the financial and political constraints of NGO and policy oriented work are made clear in Barron’s book, Reid-Buckley points to the lessons afforded by the duration of his own experience in movement building.
We hope that his month’s pieces will give you food for thought as the long nights come in.
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