Sinn Fein

Northern Ireland is in the grip of a deep political crisis.

The power-sharing administration in the six northern Irish counties still claimed by Britain between the Irish republican party Sinn Fein and the pro-British Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) collapsed when Sinn Fein Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness resigned on January 9 and called for new elections.

Explaining his decision to resign, McGuinness cited “growing DUP arrogance and lack of respect, whether that was for women, our LGBT community, ethnic minorities or the Irish-language community and identity.”

While Fidel Castro is known as a committed internationalist, supporting independence movements in Angola to South Africa, Nicaragua and even French Polynesia, less is known about his support for the Irish struggle, TeleSUR English said on December 2.

But in 1981, when Irish Republican prisoners were in the midst of a historic hunger strike against the British state, it was Fidel who once again sided with the oppressed.

Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams addresses the June 29 rally for Irish unity. Hundreds of people packed into the Liberty Hall Theatre in Dublin on June 29 as calls for a referendum on a united Ireland continue to grow following Britain's June 23 vote in favour of leaving the European Union. It came after the six counties in Ireland's north still claimed by Britain voted to stay in the EU.
THERE are calls for referendums on Irish unity and Scottish independence as both the North of Ireland and Scotland look set to be dragged out of the European Union despite voting overwhelmingly to remain. Huge votes in favour of a so-called 'Brexit' in England and Wales gave a final result of 52% voting to leave European community which Britain joined in 1973. In the North almost 56% of citizens voted to remain in the EU. Sinn Féin National Chairperson Declan Kearney MLA says there is now a democratic imperative for a referendum on Irish unity:
Proclamation of the Irish Republic

The 100th anniversary of Ireland’s Easter Rising against British rule was commemorated over the Easter weekend in Ireland and across the world. Although the rebellion failed, it spurred the Irish liberation struggle amid widespread anger at savage British repression.

80,000 people marched in Dublin on February 20 to call for a "government of change" ahead of the February 26 elections. Photo via An Phoblacht. In a sign of popular anger, the combined vote of the two parties that have long dominated the southern Irish state — Fine Gael (FG) and Fianna Fail (FF) — has fallen below 50% for the first time in Irish electoral history.
Dublin, February 20. Photo via An Phoblacht. Tens of thousands of people took to the streets of Dublin on February 20 in support of a Right2Change rally calling for an end to water charges and support for the Right2Change candidates in the February 26 general election, An Phoblacht said the next day
Protest

Left-wing members of the European parliament have called on the European Union to pressure the Turkish government to immediately end its attacks against the Kurdish community in northern Kurdistan (southeast Turkey).

Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams, writing for his Leargas blog, has warned that the 1998 Good Friday Agreement that formally ended more than two decades of armed conflict in the six counties in Ireland's north still claimed by Britain, “hangs by a thread”.
“The conduct of a number of EU governments over the past number of weeks has been alarming,” president of Irish republican party Sinn Fein and member of the Irish Dail (parliament) Gerry Adams said on the outcome of the European Union summit, which ended Greece submitting to a harsh deal. “They have effectively closed down the Greek banking system and held the Greek Government and people to ransom.
Nearly 90,000 people took to the streets of Dublin on March 21, in an unprecedented fifth mass protest in six months against the introduction of water charges by the Irish government. The sea of flags, banners and placards was addressed by a range of politicians, community activists and union leaders. The protest was organised by the Right2Water campaign — a broad coalition of community groups, NGOs and political parties, led by some of Ireland’s largest unions.
Sinn Fein MLA and Northern Ireland Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness indicated on March 9 that his party would oppose the new welfare reform bill in the northern Irish Assembly in the six Irish counties still occupied by Britain. McGuinness accused government partners the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) of acting in bad faith. Sinn Fein is in a power-sharing arrangement as part of the Good Friday peace agreement signed in 1998, which sought to end the violence that had wracked Ireland's north since the 1ate 1960s, known as The Troubles.