More than one in six Irish-born people over the age of fifteen people now live abroad, the highest proportion of any country in the OECD. This metric is a testament to generations of economic stagnancy. Despite De Valera’s famous promise …
william foley
Labour has not protected ‘core’ welfare rates
The very notion of “core” welfare rates has its roots firmly in the neoliberal doctrines that the Labour Party have lapped up.
When asked to justify their role as a junior coalition partner, Labour Party ministers and TDs usually argue that they have protected “core” social welfare rates, which otherwise would have presumably been slashed by Fine Gael. It can’t be denied …
Feeble reality of Irish capitalism
Ireland’s weak economic base and reliance on foreign direct investment has defined our general self-perception just as Marx said it would.
Karl Marx famously said that the economic “base” of society determines its “superstructure” – the culture, politics, social institutions and so on. This has proved to be a compelling and often fruitful theory, even if its empirical justification is still …
Studying philosophy has taught me nothing except how to survive misery
I have developed a virtue ethics specifically designed to help you not only survive, but thrive in periods of low-level misery.
When you are stuck in essay purgatory, your perception of the world changes. You burrow yourself like a little mole into your study alcove. Emerging on rare trips from your lair, the sky presses in oppressively, you glare enviously at …
Must try harder
William Foley
Another year, another pre-budget student protest. And it would be all too easy to write yet another article criticising the USI and TCDSU. So… I will still do that. But before I get all negative, it should be pointed out …
Why I’m proud of my Che Guevara T-shirt
“On a Tuesday night in the summer I tried to paint a train bridge that spans Portobello Road in West London with posters showing the revolutionary icon Che Guevara gradually dribbling off the page. Every Saturday the market underneath the …
Putting our faith in hope is futile
Tony Benn was wrong about hope, and it’s time we learned the lessons of defeat.
Tony Benn, who died last month, once said that “hope is the fuel of progress.” He was wrong. Hope is a cheap trick, self-conjured by a desire to anthropomorphise the cosmos – a plea, born of a near-solipsistic narcissism, for …
Julian Assange: only human?
What does it mean to say that Julian Assange is not a very admirable person? Is it true? In fact, the statement is fundamentally ambiguous because it depends on whether we are considering Assange the public figure, or Assange the …
Leadership Race: Entertainment
Comment Editor
Ents is the most hotly contested race this year, at least numerically, with three candidates – Aleksandra Giersz, Finn Murphy, and Ben Ó Mathúin – battling it out for the position. Ents is, regrettably or otherwise, …
Paul Krugman at Trinity: “My side has been proven right”
Comment Editor
Paul Krugman, winner of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics Science, visited the University Philosophical Society today. He gave a short speech on epistemology in economics and then answered questions from the floor and from …