Category Archives: human rights

My review of”Why Women have better sex under Socialism” Kristen R. Ghodsee

  In 1925 Mary Quaile, Manchester Irish trade unionist and one of the first women to be elected onto the  Trades Union Congress, led a women-only delegation to the Soviet Union to investigate the lives of women and children in … Continue reading

Posted in anti-cuts, book review, Communism, education, feminism, human rights, labour history, Manchester, political women, Socialism, Socialist Feminism, trade unions, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

IBRG Archive at the WCML. Out of Ireland. Six Irish Film Festivals 1988-93

Out of Ireland was the name given to six Irish Film Festivals that were initiated by the Manchester branch of the Irish in Britain Representation Group  and organised  from 1988 to 1993 with the Irish in Manchester History Group and … Continue reading

Posted in Catholicism, drama, education, feminism, films, human rights, Ireland, Irish second generation, labour history, Manchester, North of Ireland, political women, trade unions, TV drama, Uncategorized, women, working class history, young people | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

My review of “Wages for Housework A History of an International Feminist Movement 1972-77” by Louise Toupin (2018)

In this new and fascinating book about the Wages for Housework campaign we are looking back to a period of history when  radical women were redefining  the nature of women’s work and   challenging the role of women in  society. The … Continue reading

Posted in book review, education, feminism, human rights, labour history, political women, Socialist Feminism, trade unions, Uncategorized, women, working class history | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

My review of “A Massacre in Mexico” Anabel Hernandez

On  26 September 2014 43 male students from the Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers College went missing in Igula, Guerrero, Mexico. The cries of their parents and supporters reached  out across the world   – even to urban Manchester- as local students protested … Continue reading

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My review of “Nightmarch Among India’s Revolutionary Guerrillas” Alpa Shah

    Alpa Shah is from an East African Gujerati background. Her family moved to England when she was 15 years and she followed the usual  liberal middle class journey to Cambridge,  and  on to jobs ranging from international development … Continue reading

Posted in book review, Communism, feminism, human rights, political women, Uncategorized, women, young people | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

My review of “The Miami Showband Massacre A survivor’s search for the truth” Stephen Travers and Neil Fetherstonhaugh

      On 31 July 1975  as the  popular group,  The Miami Showband, were travelling back home across the border in the North of Ireland, they were stopped by a fake army patrol made up of Ulster Defence Regiment … Continue reading

Posted in biography, book review, Catholicism, education, human rights, Ireland, North of Ireland, Uncategorized, working class history, young people | Tagged , , | 4 Comments

My review of “Ants Among Elephants An Untouchable Family and the Making of Modern India” Sujatha Gidla

  Sujatha Gidla’s new book is not about the modern India of bollywood, nuclear weapons and a thriving economy. It is her family’s story set at the end of British colonial rule,  a family of “untouchables” – part of the … Continue reading

Posted in biography, book review, Communism, education, feminism, human rights, political women, Uncategorized, women, working class history, young people | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

My review of “Guilty Until Proven Innocent” by Jon Robins

  In the introduction to this critical and crucial analysis of the criminal justice (or rather injustice) system Michael Mansfield QC (who represented people in  many of the cases mentioned)  reminds  the reader that after the 1980s landmark miscarriage of … Continue reading

Posted in book review, human rights, Ireland, Irish second generation, labour history, Manchester, North of Ireland, political women, Uncategorized, women, working class history, young people | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Women in Poland; Putting them back into the story of the Solidarity Movement.

    In 1981 riots broke out in Moss Side where I lived. It reflected the oppression experienced by the Afro-Caribbean  people in that area; that they were discriminated against in housing, education and employment. After the riots, people like … Continue reading

Posted in Communism, education, feminism, films, human rights, labour history, Manchester, political women, Socialism, Socialist Feminism, trade unions, Uncategorized, women, working class history, young people | Tagged , , , , , | 5 Comments

The IBRG archive at the WCML. Part Four; How Irish women played an active role in IBRG.

In the 1970s the Irish community in Britain was represented by the Federation of Irish Societies; an organisation made up of mainly men who were Irish born. IBRG was set up in 1981 because of the F.I.S.’s reluctance to speak … Continue reading

Posted in feminism, human rights, International Women's Day, Ireland, Irish second generation, labour history, Manchester, North of Ireland, political women, Socialism, Socialist Feminism, Uncategorized, women, working class history, young people | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments