Ireland has been marketed as the poster boy of EU austerity. EU elites and neoliberal commentators claim that the country s ability to suffer economic pain will attract investors and generate a recovery.
In "Austerity Ireland," Kieran Allen challenges this official image and argues that the Irish state's response to the crash has primarily been designed to protect economic privilege. The resulting austerity has been a failure and is likely to produce a decade of hardship.
The book offers a deeply informed and penetrating diagnosis of Ireland's current socio-economic and political...

Born in 1868 and executed by the British in 1916 for his role in the Easter Rising, the work of Irish national hero James Connolly has long been misunderstood. From Fianna Fail and Sinn Fein, to conservative Irish nationalists and the Church, many groups have claimed Connolly as their own, his ideas and strategies used and distorted to justify particular political positions. Kieran Allen breaks this mould, assessing the founder of the Irish Marxist movement ideas from a revolutionary socialist perspective. Allen considers the strengths and weaknesses of Connolly's revolutionary strategy,...