An Clogán is a new Irish socialist republican print and online magazine of politics and culture, focused on Ireland but with an international perspective. The first issue is devoted to the theme of “The Republic”, runs to almost 200 well-designed pages and includes a wide range of articles from scholars and activists.

There are interviews with internationally renowned political philosopher Philipp Pettit and former Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams, as well as pieces by filmmaker and former IRA prisoner Deaglán Ó Mocháin, sociologist Claire Mitchell, former MEP Clare Daly and Sara Muthi, a Curatorial Fellow at the Irish Museum of Modern Art. Issues covered vary from perspectives on Irish sovereignty, artistic freedom, eco-feminism and hurling.

It’s an impressively broad, pluralist read but the magazine’s editorial stance is unashamedly socialist. It declares: “The era of centrism is over.”

“Centrists want us to forget how we got here,” it says. “They present liberal democracy and the capitalist economy as conjoined twins, inseparable and born together, thereby erasing the violent struggles that won democratic rights, trade union power, and workers’ representation. They portray democracy as a mere institutional form: if you vote for a government – no matter how powerless in the face of capital and supranational bodies – you are told you live in a democracy.

“Within this political imagination, republicanism is watered down to a variety of liberalism: liberalism without a monarch. But in doing so, liberal centrists deny the essence of the republican tradition: the idea of people self-governing, free from domination. This vision remains as radical as ever.”

“At the heart of socialism” says the editorial, “is a simple republican proposition: replace class rule with democracy, move from a society in which power is concentrated in the hands of the few, to one where we govern ourselves.”

This is an ambition that has been excised from political discourse. Instead, “in this hollowed-out democracy, a dark nostalgia has taken root.” In Ireland, the Islamophobic, transphobic, misogynistic far right tries to cloak itself in the traditions of Irish nationalism. An Clogán seeks to reclaim the inclusive essence of Irish republicanism, emphasising, for example, Wolfe Tone’s attempts to unite the different ethnic traditions of Ireland.

The magazine will appear annually. It seeks to facilitate the debates and discussions necessary for socialists to make progress in the concrete conditions they now find themselves.

For more information and to subscribe, see https://www.anclogan.ie/