About

Activism

Lasair Dhearg is an organisation with a strong focus on political activism. We believe that the best method to build the revolutionary Movement, to raise awareness of Socialist Republican politics, and to highlight any given issue or campaign is to get active and to propagandise that activism as effectively as possible.

Consequently, as a young and relatively small Movement, Lasair Dhearg is able to project itself and the politics it espouses to a larger audience. If you like what Lasair Dhearg stands for, and would prefer an organisation with a strong focus on activism, then consider joining and playing your part in the fight for a 32 County Socialist Republic.

Bígí Linn – Join Us!

Socialist Republicanism

Lasair Dhearg is fighting for a 32 County Socialist Republic. Only through the creation of such a Republic can we begin to affect real change on the island of Ireland. We believe that bigotry, sectarianism, racism and sexism can only finally begin to be eradicated by ridding ourselves of the economic system forced upon us by the two failed Six and Twenty-Six county statelets; both of which are deliberately designed to protect the interests of private capital and the political elites that seek to benefit from them. 

In the Six County state, over 20,000+ security personnel oversee the continued occupation of over one fifth of Ireland’s 32 counties. Across the state, a small area of just over 5000 square miles, there are almost 80 heavily fortified military-type police barracks – complemented with additional British military bases, equipment and personnel. This infrastructure oversees an economic system that continues to plunder our health system, drives up the cost of housing for those most in need, and fails to effectively deal with a generations old mental health crisis.

For hundreds of years, every generation of Irish people has sought to remove the presence of a foreign power, often by force of arms. Britain’s role in Ireland, driven by the exploitation of our land, our people and our resources, has been one of misery and subjugation. Their presence has given rise to demands to be free from external exploitation and interference; to decide our own affairs within the framework of national and economic sovereignty.

In the Twenty-Six County state, successive governments have consistently transferred state assets and resources into the hands of the banks, landlords, investment funds and international conglomerates. Capitalism has driven a whole generation from their homes as the housing system is utilised for ever greater profit margins, driving up rents and housing costs. Natural resources are privatised, allowing big business to add to their already heavy bank balances, selling an Irish resource back to the Irish people.

This is why we are building a new Movement to fight for a 32 County Socialist Republic. Lasair Dhearg’s primary concern is the liberation of Ireland’s Six Counties from British domination, the eradication of both failed states, and the creation of a 32 County Socialist Republic.

This can be achieved through the development of a grass roots anti-imperialist movement, whose central demand would be nothing short of a total British military, political and economic withdrawal from Ireland.

Lasair Dhearg stands firmly against imperialism, and it is on that basis that we are also internationalists; we stand in solidarity with those other nations who, like Ireland, are fighting against the onslaught of global capitalism. International solidarity with the working people of this world will provide the basis upon which imperialism can be defeated.

Only through the building of a radical Socialist Republican Movement in Ireland can we bring about the creation of a 32 County Socialist Republic.

Join Lasair Dhearg and help make it happen.

Strategy

Lasair Dhearg believes that the Irish people do not need to wait until the establishment of the Socialist Republic to develop the various state institutions required to support it, but that the development of those same institutions in advance, can serve as the catalyst for its eventual establishment. Essentially, providing and developing alternatives to currently existing state bodies, institutions and economic processes, begins the foundation of the Socialist Republic.

This can be applied to all the currently existing state institutions across the island. These include, and are not limited to, health, education, employment, housing, social welfare, policing & justice and arguably more importantly, the economy.

Not-for-profit economic alternatives developed within the community can serve as the catalyst for a new democratic economy, providing goods and services without the added profit margins. Such a venture will no doubt take several years to develop, but in the process of doing so it also becomes a tool of economic education for the wider community, showing that there are alternatives to the current neo-liberal economic system.

This economic alternative serves as the initial stages of the new state economic arrangement. A democratic economy can be developed to the point where there is an effective ‘tipping of the scale’ in favour of it as an economic system, representing a step change in attitudes and favourability toward the old mechanisms of the soon to be defunct state. Increased favourability toward the new and developing system, and the eventual ‘tipping’, marks the beginning of the end of state control over most institutions, given that all state bodies are founded upon the economic processes of society – consequently, if the people take control of the economy, they take control of society. It is on this basis that a new social order is established in favour of the largest class in society – the working class.

This method can be applied across all areas of the state; creation of alternative systems, growth in support of that alternative, support eclipsing and outstripping that of the old order, and eventual establishment of that alternative as the superior system.

Development of community alternatives running parallel to each other, for example Justice & Policing, Housing and Economy, and the consequent increased support for these various non-profit substitutes, would provide the basis of the Socialist Republic. Their very establishment and subsequent growth, would slowly chip away the old order to a position of non-existence. The emerging dominance of a new economic, social and political system would assert itself across Ireland with the creation of a new, united, Socialist Republic.