Robert Poole

The conversation about Ireland's future is happening, and educators must lead it. We are not just teaching history; we are shaping it. Educators for a United Ireland is a cross-island group dedicated to exploring how education can facilitate peaceful, prosperous constitutional change. #Ireland

What role can/should educators play in making progress towards a united Ireland?

Wear Red For Key Workers – Strike Map Strike Map are encouraging people to wear red on May Day to acknowledge the contribution of, and show solidarity with, our key workers.

Wear Red for Key Workers on May Day!🚩

5 years ago, #redforworkers was launched to show solidarity with the key workers who kept the country going through the pandemic.

@strikemap.org's @redhen90.bsky.social and @robbmonster.bsky.social write on why it's happening again this year!

Beyond Adolescence: the dangerous misinterpretations of Netflix’s most controversial drama The series unveils uncomfortable truths about youth alienation and online radicalisation — but the real crisis lies in austerity and the absence of class consciousness in addressing young people’s dis...

A really excellent analysis here from my good friend @robbmonster.bsky.social.

Read and share below 👇
morningstaronline.co.uk/article/beyo...

An end to the academy school gravy train? As the government moves to rein in academy freedoms, former darling of conservative education reform Katharine Birbalsingh cries ‘Marxism.’ Education columnist ROBERT POOLE examines how academisation ...

An end to the academy school gravy train? As the government curbs academy freedoms, Katharine Birbalsingh cries ‘Marxism.’
My thoughts on how academisation has failed children, enriched executives, and empowered ideologues, eroding democratic accountability.

morningstaronline.co.uk/article/end-...

@robbmonster.bsky.social, Assistant District Secretary for
Bolton @neunion.bsky.social/ co-founder @strikemap.bsky.social, said:

“Our members will be braving the cold weather to picket and we welcome anyone to come along and show their support. Picket lines can be found via #StrikeMap."

4 years of strike map. picture of birthday card. Sign our birthday card. 4 years putting struggle on the map. Strike Map logo.

❤️Sunday is for #Solidarity.

Over 300 people have signed our birthday card, wishing us a happy 4th birthday.

Add your message here: bit.ly/HappyBirthdayStrikeMap

#StrikeMap

One young man who answered the call was a 14 year old boy called Patrick Brennan of D Company 3rd Battalion IRA.

The date was set for Easter Sunday 1916. Details were kept secret, risings in Ireland had been betrayed before. On this fateful day, members of the Irish Volunteers and Irish Citizen Army would rise up and capture strategic locations throughout the city of Dublin.Including the GPO and Boland's Mill.

Discussions were underway with the Germans about delivering more arms to Ireland and support for a rising. A distraction to Britain's rear would help their war aims. For others, like James Connolly, they saw a third way. Neither King nor Kaiser but Ireland.

Many in Ireland believed the home rulers like Redmond and thought that come the end of the Great War Ireland would get what had been promised it. A degree of freedom. But others were more sympathetic to the Germans.. They had known British promises before.

Henry Connolly enlisted in the Royal Field Artillery and rose to the rank of corporal but on Christmas Day 1915 received a battle field commission.Whether due to courage, aptitude or heavy losses in his unit it is not known. But this working class lad from Mohill now held a letter from King George.

The response is, predictably heavy handed. Asquith visits Dublin beating the drum of war any many follow the call. Perhaps out of patriotism perhaps out of desperation. One of these is a thing man from Leitrim. William Henry Connolly who will become Patrick Brennan's father in law...

It's hard to know what happens to the Brennan's in the next decade but in this time war begins to rage in Europe and things heat up in Ireland. Erskine Childers lands German guns in Howth for the Irish Volunteers and strikes begin to send shockwaves through workplaces. The British army responds...

By 1911, the next census things seemed to be looking up for the Brennan's. They were living in a two-up-two-down mid-terrace on Hastings Street in Ringsend. Though the family had now grown to 9 with the birth of 6 more children joining Patrick including twins Annie and Denis.

Extract: Life and death in a Dublin tenement - 'finding rent was a struggle' Tim Murtagh shares an extract from his new book, Spectral Mansions which documents the lives of those living in Dublin tenements over 100 years ago.

Hi Paul, I'm going to slowly write up the story as I find time. I found reference to the article here: www.thejournal.ie/readme/dubli...

Although these conditions may sound hellish, I'm sure Denis and his pregnant wife Annie would have preferred this to their next home... The South Dublin Union workhouse...

In 1906 in an article for the Irish Times a journalist wrote of the conditions in these tenamants, ‘every shape of disease germ, both physical and mental, is being bred at hot-house speed. That top back room of the Dublin tenement house is the devil’s incubator.'

For the working class of Dublin this was nothing unusual. Overcrowding, poor diets and infectious diseases were the norm. Despite a population decimated by famine the population of Dublin was growing. Housing was scarce and many were forced to live in crumbling tenamants.

My Great Grandad Patrick Brennan was born in 1901. Life at the turn of the century in Dublin was tough for the working class. Census documents for 1901 show his parents Denis and Annie living on Great Brunswick street in a room in a house they shared with six other families. 16 people in total.

With the help of @theirishstory.bsky.social and @msp-archive.bsky.social, friends and family members I have spent the past few months researching my Irish family history.

Starting with the discovery of one address in Ringsend, Dublin I've found a story that starts in a Dublin workhouse...

𝐒𝐢𝐠𝐧 𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝟒𝐭𝐡 𝐛𝐢𝐫𝐭𝐡𝐝𝐚𝐲 𝐜𝐚𝐫𝐝: bit.ly/HappyBirthdayStrikeMap

YouTube video by Strike Map "Where StrikeMap is today is a good illustration of the intensity of class struggle."

"Where #StrikeMap is today is a good illustration of the intensity of class struggle over the past few years."

@paulascachette.bsky.social from our launch of our last #IndustrialUnionism pamphlet.

Buy yours here: manifestopress.coop/product/pre-...

youtu.be/v21iEq4VUug

Last night (05.12.2024) my friends over at @strikemap.bsky.social launched their first ever Strike Map report which provides detailed analysis of the strike wave that took hold across the UK in 2023 and shines a light on an area of data overlooked by the ONS.

Very proud to have designed this report for @strikemap.bsky.social. It's a really good insight into the strike wave via the data we collated on the map during that period. The authors have done a great job of pulling it together.

We’re really pleased to have written this report. Thanks to @redhen90.bsky.social and @robbmonster.bsky.social for access to the data. The fantastic graphics and design is thanks to @tomgreenwood.bsky.social

✊Next up for team #StrikeMap

Our first ever academic report into the data we have been collecting.

🗓️ 5 December | 🕕 6pm | 📍Mechanics Institute, MCR

RSVP to join us here: bit.ly/SMreportlaunch

Thanks to Bolton Socialist Club for hosting me tonight and those who braved the rain to hear me speak about Cuba and special thanks to those who kindly donated to the Cuba Vive medical appeal. @cubasolidarity.bsky.social

My favourite fact about Engels is that he trained his dog to bark at the rich:

'When I say “Namenloser” (that's his name)"there's an aristocrat!” he goes wild with rage and growls hideously at the person I show him'

Happy birthday to Friedrich Engels

"The education of all children, from the moment that they can get along without a mother's care, shall be in state institutions. The free development of each is the condition for the free development of all."